Story of her life - Alternate plots
by iamhopeless.com
Summary: One-shots from Story of her life AU. Abandoned plotlines, alternate meetings, basically short AU fics for an AU. BAMF Fem!John (obviously). Genres may vary.
1. The Flying Hero

**A/N:** This was supposed to be chapter 24 of Story of her life, but it devolved into something completely crazy along the way. But it still made me laugh, so I decided to share. It is not part of the main story and can be read as stand-alone, but they are the same characters.

**Disclaimer: ****'**Sherlock' belongs to all the important people that you know. You recognize it, I don't own it.

**Warning:** Language.

**# #**

Sally was having a bad day. It had been raining heavily for two days, and even if it cleared up a little, it was still impossible to keep her dress pants clean of the ambient mud. Especially when they were patrolling back-streets in hopes of flushing out the pair of wannabe gangsters that decided to terrorize Southern London. The two men had been responsible for several attacks, starting as simple muggings, but one of the victims died. Then a second one. Then they got vicious, and half of the police force was about ready to rip them a new one.

Unfortunately, they were also good at hiding, and DI Lestrade called Holmes. The Freak took a glance at their files and narrowed down their search zone, despite Donovan's protests. They had been snapping at each other, when Joan Watson calmly came between them. "Sherlock, please explain your reasoning."

"But John…"

"Giving chances, remember?" Sally really didn't like what it implied. The Freak and his pet were not giving them **chances**, _**they**_ were tolerating them! It was infuriating. So, Sally was not a happy person, following the search map compiled by the two most irritating persons in the city. Well, Watson wasn't that bad, but the woman kept the oddest company. There must be a couple of screws loose in that blond head.

The radio crackled. Her boss shouted something about being after one of their targets, then an unmistakable baritone gave clipped directions to another back-alley.

Flanked by another sergeant and two constables, Sally skidded to a halt at the alley entrance, only to see a stout man in a leather vest aim a gun at an unarmed Holmes. "Freeze!" someone shouted behind her, but the guy was too far gone. It was like in a slow-motion movie, with blood trumping in her ears, loud, loud, _shit, that's bad_. She **hated** Holmes, but it was no reason to wish his death.

But before the shot fired, someone flew from the second floor right on the thug, accompanied by a panicked "John!" from the open window above. _Wait, what?!_ The assembled police officers watched in shocked silence as Joan Watson rolled into a crouch and immediately launched at the shooter, who had fallen to the ground with a grunt. Having an adult human drop on you from above could be hurtful, apparently. There was a kick, a spin, and the gun cluttered to the other side of the alley. A punch, and the guy was wailing in pain, pinned down by Watson's knee to his kidneys and his arm held well up his back.

"YOU CRAZY, MY ARM'LL BREAK! LET ME GO!"

Watson remained royally unperturbed, and just put more weight on his back. The street noise seemed to fade when she leaned forward to say in a matter-of-fact voice: "Just give me a reason." It made chills run down Sally's spine, and judging by how her colleagues shivered, she was not an exception. The 'vengeful god' moment didn't last a minute, though, as Holmes stepped forward. _Almost forgot about him_, Sally thought, still rooted on the spot.

"That's quite enough, John." He produced zip-ties from his bottomless pockets and soon their killer was bound and ready. Holmes turned to them with a mockingly raised eyebrow. "Are you going to arrest him or what?"

**# #**

Greg was having a spectacularly bad day. First, he inherited the muggers-killers case. Second, no groundwork had been done on it, so they had to review all reports again, trying to find any clue as to the attackers' identities or at least their hiding spots. Third, the weather was goddamn awful. His wife took the car because "I can't walk to the Tube!", so he had to walk to the Tube instead under the downpour. Without an umbrella, since his kids had the great idea to use them as swords in a school play. Fourth, Sherlock was having another go with Sally about their respective intelligence and overall maturity level.

_One day, I'm going to kill them both, I swear…_

Joan was a godsend in this situation. How she managed to diffuse the tension was a mystery. Perhaps, Sherlock actually listening to her was a clue. It was still amazing to watch.

Once they were outside, ready to cover the area identified by Holmes, the man himself disappeared somewhere, leaving brief instructions in his wake. "I suppose I'll stick with you for now" Joan said, glancing a little worriedly in Sherlock's direction.

They all split into pairs, one team never being too far away from the other, and started the patrol. Greg watched Joan from the corner of his eye. She looked alert and focused, but now and then her hand twitched towards the phone in her pocket. "He knows what's he's doing" he tried to reassure her.

"That's what you'd think, right?" she smiled weakly back. "But he gets too enthusiastic about things. Underestimates people." It was odd to see someone genuinely worry about Sherlock. The elusive big brother Greg had met a couple of times didn't count.

Suddenly, his phone beeped with an incoming text. "**You will find one of them in the building to your left. SH**". They exchanged surprised looks, and obediently went into the old building. They were barely past the entrance, when loud crushing noises came from upstairs and a man darted down the stairs and through the backyard.

They ran.

After a short chase, made difficult by various boxes and garbage littering the space, their target barged into another building. Lestrade had time to bark in his radio about having a suspect in sight, before rushing after him. The man wasn't particularly bright, though, as they found him in the middle of an empty room on the second floor, frantically looking around for a weapon. Joan tackled him without breaking her run. His head collided with the wall with a loud thud, and that was it. While Greg was handcuffing the thug, Joan checked her phone. "Where's Sherlock?" She sounded even more worried.

"No idea, why?" he asked.

"We think that one of the guys is just a tag-along. The other is the violent one. This" she nodded at the still unconscious man, "is the follower."

"So, the dangerous one is still out there?"

"Yeah…"

There were loud voices outside, and Joan darted to the window. "Sherlock" she breathed out, hands already unlatching the window. Before Greg could do or say anything, she was perched on the ledge, eyes calculating and **very** cold. And then she jumped. "John!" he cried out, tripping on his way to the window. There was a scuffle below, and he only saw the end of it, where Joan pinned a grown man to the ground and calmly subdued him into silence. _Well, damn._

**# #**

Sherlock was having a relatively good day. He was called to assist in a case of violent muggings that degenerated into killings. While not very challenging intellectually, it was a welcome distraction and physical exercise. And an adrenaline shot. He needed that.

Still riled up by the argument with Donovan, he decided to go solo on this one. Splitting from the main force, he quickly climbed up to the nearest roof, and started his search, leaving the meticulous checks of every street to the police. He had changed buildings several times when he noticed two things:

_i) One of the muggers was anxiously looking out of a window, clearly aware of the search going on._

_ii) John had teamed up with Lestrade and they were just under the said window._

He typed out a text, certain that Joan could handle this one.

_Fact:__ The man was fearful. __Fact:__ The two-man team was composed of a leader and a follower. __Fact:__ The leader was the one with violent tendencies. __Conclusion:__ John was currently arresting the follower._

_Assumption:__ Their lair was in this particular building. __Assumption:__ The leader is out, but not far away – the follower was waiting for him / his orders. __Conclusion: __He is nearby. __Conclusion:__ Chase._

He jumped to the next building, noticing a burly man briskly walking down the street, hands in his pockets and nervously glancing back every ten seconds. _Bingo._

Sherlock tumbled down the fire escape, emerged on the street, and started to pursuit. First, it had been a very obvious tailing, then the guy ducked into an alley, _and why wouldn't he follow?_

_Stupid_, he scolded himself when faced with a muzzle of a gun. _What a stupid way to die. _There were general noises from the incoming police officers, but they would not be able to save him.

A window creaked open above them, he glanced quickly to the potential witness of his own murder and froze. On the window ledge was Joan Watson, focused entirely on the armed mugger and clearly ready to jump. From the second floor. _Estimating the distance to the ground. Estimating force of impact. Estimating potential damage._ He didn't finish his calculations, as Joan launched herself out and onto the attacker. There was a panicked shout from inside (_Lestrade. That idiot couldn't stop her?!_), as Joan landed feet first on the man shoulders, and bounced to the side, leaving her target nosedive to the ground. She rolled away, but Sherlock noticed the wince when she came to a halt. Despite the probable damage (_left ankle, also scrapped her hands_), the ex-soldier lunged forward, efficiently disarming the criminal and getting him in a hold. The thug started shouting profanities, and Sherlock was about to intervene, when he noticed Joan's eyes.

They were cold and sharp like cursed sapphires. Her face was expressing a bored contempt, while her body was effortlessly tense, just enough to hold the grown man in place with minimal effort. It was a wrath he had never seen in her before. In response to futile threats, this dangerous, _lethal_, woman simply stated "Just give me a reason" into her victim's ear. _And I'll kill you with pleasure_ seemed to hang in the air.

This was Captain Watson from bad days. A soldier who killed people. _Not John._

Unable to watch anymore, Sherlock stepped forward. "That's quite enough, John." His voice caught in his throat when impassive blue eyes gazed upon him. _Bored._ That was the only thing that came to his mind. _She looks bored of the whole world to the point of violence._ And then the coldness was gone, softening her features, and she just half-shrugged, half-nodded to him to proceed.

Sherlock cuffed the criminal on auto-pilot, mulling about the unexpected sight he witnessed. _Fact:__ John had rarely talked about her military career. __Fact:__ John had mentioned the "bad days". __Fact:__ John was trained in hand-to-hand combat and was perfectly able to kill with her bare hands. __Conclusion:__ John was not involved in the army __**only **__in medical capacity. Further investigation required. __Note:__ No Mycroft._

There were stunned mutterings somewhere at the entrance of the alley. _Oh, yes, the idiots._ "Are you going to arrest him or what?" he drawled at the assembled officers, who were now openly staring. Most looked abashed, and started actually doing something. Like hoisting the criminal up and to a patrol car, or starting to process the scene. Lestrade shouted from above for someone to come help him with the second criminal, and two constables rushed away. Donovan was scolding someone on the phone. Sherlock observed them critically, before turning to the main reason of his irritation.

Joan had shuffled to the side, putting all weight on the right leg. Her small ponytail had broken and shoulder-length hair was constantly getting into her face because of the wind, making her huff and run a hand through it. For some reason, she took off her jacket too, standing there in a t-shirt. It didn't go unnoticed by surrounding Yarders, who finally realized that Watson was a woman that could be considered as attractive by common standards. Sherlock noticed at least three of them ogling at the unassuming doctor. Which didn't improve his mood at all.

He marched to his blogger, dark as a thunder cloud, but his rant was derailed by an honest look of concern on Joan's face. She had been biting her lips, something she usually did when slightly embarrassed but not regretful. The loose hair also made her face look rounder and softer. "Why is your hair like this?" he blurted instead.

"My hairband broke" she answered evenly, then frowned at him. "Why didn't you wait for back-up?"

The detective didn't have an answer for that, so he chose to attack. "I had back-up, they were just useless." _Take that._ "You are not allowed to jump out of buildings ever again, John" he stated firmly. It had been a bad move, since her adorable (_Adorable? What is wrong with me?_) frown intensified. She raised her chin in stubborn protest, eyes narrowing on her flatmate.

"You. Were. About. To be. Shot." She punctuated each word with a finger jab to his chest. "You, mister, are not qualified to lecture me on dangerous behavior."

He had no ground to stand on, but Sherlock Holmes was not about to give up. "Second floor, John!"

The fleeting look of shame transformed into a reluctant pout. "Let's agree that we were both reckless then" she grumbled, crossing her arms. There were choked whispers from the audience, and a muffled whistle.

Holmes swirled around, glaring. But all eyes were on Joan. Specifically, on her chest that crossed arms accentuated. How trained detectives did not notice Watson's curves before that moment was beyond him. Yes, her usual clothes were far from revealing, but it was rather obvious that she was not a flat-board. And it was also no reason to stare at her like a bunch of hormonal teenagers seeing a mini-skirt for the first time.

Openly enough for even Joan to notice (_she remained thankfully oblivious to all signs of interest from the male half of the population… unless she was intentionally ignoring them. Hmmm… to consider_), and stage-whisper to him: "What's going on?"

He turned back to her with a raised eyebrow, pointedly giving her an eye-down. Joan answered with a confused frown. Sherlock sighed, and pointedly glanced at her hair, her shirt, then at the assembled Yarders. She didn't seem to understand _again_, until she glanced at the small crowd that stopped doing their work long ago. The look of resigned horror was just hilarious, and Sherlock stifled a laugh. "Can we go home now?" the doctor asked in a low voice.

**# #**

Joan was having an interesting day. Instead of going over her notes on the latest case, they had been called in to help. Sherlock looked delighted, until Sally Donovan decided to voice her opinions. _The maturity of some people, honestly… _The consulting detective was still fuming when they got to the search area, even if it was barely noticeable, and took off on his own, probably to went some steam. She could relate, but it was worrying, given the type of criminals they were up against.

It was pure luck that their man ran into the right building, and Greg and she ended up just above the scene. Hadn't they been there, the other guy would have shot Sherlock. This possibility enraged her to the point she forgot all warning signs, and just acted. The simmering anger clouded her senses enough to ignore pain, and at the same time sharpened them to the point where the whole world appeared slowed and in technicolor.

_This bug threatened my friend. He will never do that again. Hurt him, break him, make him cry._

"That's quite enough, John."

The baritone jerked her out of the almost meditative state. Sherlock looked unhurt, but shaken. Realizing what could have ticked him off, Joan shrugged and let him do his thing. _Didn't want him to see that. Didn't really want to do that again either…_

The pain came back with a vengeance, and she limped to the side, feeling her left ankle slowly swell. Her forearms felt itchy, so she tugged off the jacket to assess the damage. The old hairband decided to snap at that moment, leaving her huffing endlessly to get hair out of her eyes. Oddly enough, only her hands were scratched, thanks to the concrete and the rough landing. The itchy feeling probably came from the jacket itself against bare and sweaty skin. The heavy rain in the middle of May had been accompanied by rather warm temperatures, and Joan never knew whether she was going to freeze or melt outside.

So here she was, minding her own business, when Sherlock marched towards her, as sulky as he could get. He was clearly going to yell at her, but got distracted by something. "Why is your hair like this?" _That's what you want to talk about?_

"My hairband broke. Why didn't you wait for back-up?" He seemed startled at being reprimanded. Ensued their usual banter about back-ups and careless behavior, leading nowhere since neither wanted to concede the point. Feeling a little drained from the fight, Joan fully prepared to sulk all the way to Baker Street. Unfortunately, her best glare was lost on Sherlock, who was busy scowling at the Yarders. _What are they doing anyway? It's not the first time we argued on the scene._ "What's going on?"

The underlying irritation was gone, and Sherlock was sporting an amused glint in his eyes. _I'm screwed_, she decided, not getting the joke yet, but fearing it already. Following the prodding glances, she looked at the police officers again. The realization dawned on her with creeping horror. _They're adults, dammit. Why are they drooling. _"Can we go home now?"

Sherlock shook his head, amused. "And divest your new fans of your presence?"

"This is ridiculous" she hissed, tightening her arms around herself. "Haven't they seen me before? Even Sally is staring."

"I think it has to do with your flying performance" the coat-wearing pest explained patiently. "They were already fan-boyish when you beat up those thieves in March, now that they realized you are actually dating material… Well, you'll have even more visitors on your blog now." _For Christ's sake… This is absurd. I'm injured, sweaty and tired. How the hell is that dating material? _Sherlock seemed to read her thoughts, like always: "I might have heard someone mention 'super-hero'." _Oh boy…_

"I'm starting to wholeheartedly agree with you. People are idiots. Can we go home now?" The whole conversation was in low voice, so that the star-struck audience wouldn't be privy to it. Some Yarders even pretended very hard to not eavesdrop while taking photos of them. Taking pity in her obvious discomfort, the detective nodded and started walking towards the main street. Joan made to follow, but the first step shot spikes of pain up her leg. _Damn, the ankle._

"Erm…" Sherlock turned around, surprised to see her on the old spot. "My ankle" she said loud enough for everyone to hear. Sherlock's surprise switched to a disapproving frown. Clearly, he remembered why they had been arguing in the first place. She gave him a sheepish smile before avoiding the sharp gaze. "It's sprained." _Perhaps not a smart move, Watson_. Several men perked up. Holmes also noticed the eager crowd ready to help their new hero. His eyes lit with unholy glee. _Oh dear._

"Why, John, you should have said something" he purred, walking right back to her.

She read his intentions seconds too late. "Wha, wai…" Before she could dodge (not that it was possible with a sprained ankle), Sherlock gathered her up in his arms, bridal style. There was a collective gasp. Ignoring the gaping police force and several photo flashes, the consulting detective started walking back to the main street, looking way too smug. Their progress was somehow slowed by his deliberately languid pace and a couple of younger constables stunned into a statue-like state in their path.

Petrified, Joan stared wide-eyed at his profile, that was very close now. "I hate you so much right now" she moaned in embarrassment, hiding her face in her hands.

She could **feel** the deep chuckle. _Idiot, dumbass, imp, you are so going to pay, _she cried internally. "Hold on, would you, John" her tormentor mock-whispered.

_Oh, you…_ Switching on her inner 'Harriet', Joan forced herself to relax and snaked her arms around Sherlock's neck, one hand curling into his soft hair and the other tickling his cheek. Laying her head on his shoulder, she felt the heat creep up his face, and smirked in triumph. "Am I holding tight enough?" she drawled seductively.

His jaw clenched. "I can drop you too."

Amused, Joan blew softly into his ear. Sherlock's coloring progressed to crimson. "I'll stop doing **this **then."

They had finally gotten out of the police perimeter, and received only a few passing stares from unconcerned passerbys. Gently letting her down on a bench, Sherlock hailed a cab, and helped her get inside without any comments. They spent several minutes in awkward silence, before dissolving into helpless giggles.

**# #**

Next day, there was a crowd under their door and tabloids were displaying images of their little stint, titles like "**Modern Love Story**", "**Hatman + Robin – New development**" and "**The Internet phenomenon – Not single anymore**" spread all over. Mrs Hudson looked quite ecstatic when she popped up in the flat around 9 in the morning with blueberry scones. Glancing outside through curtains, Joan sighed. "I'm not sure that was such a bright idea anymore."

"Relax" Sherlock called from the kitchen. "They were speculating anyway. And why are you standing?"

Resigned, Joan hobbled back to the couch, tugging on the long sleeves of her dressing gown. "Your brother texted me. Said congratulations. Should I worry?"

"Yes, he tried to call me. Ignore him."

"He also texted me the dates on which your parents are available for a meeting and a list of possible venues for a marriage."

There was a crushing noise in the kitchen, followed by the glass breaking, and Sherlock stumbled out. "He WHAT?!" Joan eyed him dispassionately.

"I can't decide whether he is mocking us or has bought into the idea."

"He told Mommy?!" Amused, Joan watched her friend descend into a minor panic attack.

"Well, now that we're engaged in the eyes of British government, can I request you clean up the fridge?"

He stared at her with a wild look in his eyes, before ducking into his room. Judging by the noises, he was either barricading himself or doing some major interior redecorating. Chuckling, Joan texted this development to Anthea, who had already sent her a picture of the older Holmes browsing bride's bouquets during worktime.

**# #**

"**We are not engaged. SH**"

"**I presume it is only a matter of time now, brother dear. Congratulations. It was obvious from day one. MH**"

"**It was a prank to rile up the NSY! Stop spreading this. Did you tell Mommy? And what do you mean by obvious? SH**"

"**Of course, I told Mommy. It's on National News. MH**"

"**WHAT?!**"

"**And you haven't answered my question. SH**"

**# #**

Sherlock emerged from his room, phone clenched in hand, and made a beeline to the telly. After a few zaps, he ended up on a continuous news channel. Curious, Joan shifted to get a better view.

"And on the brighter side, new developments in London" was saying the anchor. "The internet sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, and his loyal blogger, Joan Watson, are confirmed to be in a romantic relationship." A clip from Youtube popped up, showing them whispering to each other, then Sherlock hoisting her up and walking away, with an expression that could be interpreted as content. The video ended when Joan hugged him back and, from that angle, seemed to kiss his ear.

"Oh my" was the only thing she could say. "That won't be easy to debunk."

Sherlock growled, shut off the telly and rushed back to his room.

**# #**

"**While I am not cautioning sentiment, Dr Watson is far from the worst choice you could have made. MH**"

"**Go to hell, Mycroft. We are not dating. SH**"

"**So, you are not in love with her? MH**"

**# #**

A loud thud echoed from Sherlock's lair. Joan frowned. That was at least a stack of books. "**Are you ok? JW**" she texted him. "**Fine. SH**" came the reply, oozing with sulkiness. _Alright, alright… You're the one who started this, anyway._

**# #**

"**This is none of your business. SH**"

"**Mommy would be so disappointed, though, if you were to back down now. MH**"

"**You will not blackmail me into a relationship. SH**"

"**But you already are in a relationship, Sherlock. You both are just very good at denying it. MH**"

"**Shut up.** **SH**"

"**Did you find it? MH**"

"**SHUT UP! SH**"

**# #**

Joan was busy fending off calls from her own family, when Sherlock reappeared again, this time in a tuxedo. _Ok… what?_ She stared at him suspiciously. "What are you doing?"

He had the grace to blush, but seemed pretty determined. Joan sat up, slightly worried. Still towering over her, Sherlock looked straight into her eyes, dead serious. "The world thinks we are engaged."

She gulped. "I figured."

"I'm quite fuzzy on the concept of romantic love and marriage myself, but I get the gist of it. It is the intention to spent the rest of your life with the other person." Joan listened on in shocked silence. _Is he…_ "For the rest of my life, I would want no one else but you by my side, John." _Is he proposing to me?_

Joan blanked out, imagining being married to Sherlock Holmes. _It is madness. Total, utter madness. Just like it had been since the beginning. _The only thing she could see changing was the definitive end of any other romantic prospects. _It will be for life. A life with Sherlock… doesn't sound that bad._

She blinked at him, still a little confused of what brought that on. "Are you saying what I'm think you're saying?"

He dropped on one knee with a small grin on his face, producing a delicate golden ring from his pocket. _Oh my god._ "John Watson, would you marry me?"

"You're suggesting we get married because of a prank?" she weakly tried to clarify. He nodded. _Oh my god. Oh hell. Oh god… _"Yes." It was now his turn to blink. "Alright. I'll marry you."

They stared at each other, stunned. _That was not how I imagined my morning._ Sherlock gently took her hand and put the ring on her finger, before sitting next to her on the couch.

"So, we **are** engaged now." The words sounded odd. "Where did you get a ring, anyway?"

"I found it in the skull when I bought it" Sherlock informed her like it was the obviousness itself.

"My engagement ring is a pirate treasure?!"

**# #**

"**I feel like I was led into it like a sheep. But it feels good. J**"

"**You were dancing around each other for months now. A**"

"**Yeah, well, have you met Sherlock? The man is clueless. I never seriously considered he'd be interested, let alone propose. J**"

"**Mycroft was rather shocked too. He was just nagging him for the fun of it. A**"

"**He rips what he sows. J**"

"**So, how's the couple life? I'm curious. A**"

"**Don't see much difference. We haven't even kissed yet. Not sure he realized that this kind of interaction is expected. J**"

"**He had some flings, though. In uni.** **A**"

"**Really? Huh, I'd never have guessed. Should I talk to him first? J**"

"**Do whatever you want, just let me know beforehand, so I can snap a picture of Mycroft's face when he sees the footage. A**"

"**You still have cameras inside the flat? It's stalking, stalking! J**"

"**It's national security. Go pester your brother-in-law about that. A**"

"**Oof. You're evil. Anyway, how cool is it, having your ring found in a human skull? J**"

"**You are a very weird person, John. A**"

**# #**

**A/N 2**: So yeah. As I said, something crazy happened along the way. I wasn't sure how to finish all this, so it kinda ends here. I might be inspired enough to write a follow-up if anyone is interested (Mycroft's POV?).

The first part (John jumping from high up to stop a criminal and the police being completely awestruck, there was also a thunder storm involved) is inspired by another fic, but I can't for the life of me find it. If you know which one it is, let me know, I'll give credit.

_**Edit: The fic in question is Scrub456's "fantastically, wildly improbable". **__**Thanks LookAgain for finding it!**_

If (when) I have any other short and unrelated "spin-offs" like this one, I'll post them here too.


	2. The Bowling Date

**A/N:** Alternate first meeting. Same Sherlock and Joan as in the main story, just... well, you'll see.

**Disclaimer: ****'**Sherlock' belongs to all the important people that you know. You recognize it, I don't own it.

**# #**

Sebastian Wilkes was a popular guy. His life in university was a breeze. He had made useful contacts, got recommendations from professors, and overall had a blast. He even found a fun nerd to play with. The guy was hilarious. Creepy, blurting out stuff nobody should know, but very easily manipulated to share his homework or get the info on someone annoying. The creep was often walking with his feet in his mouth, so to tame him Sebastian formed a group that would act friendly with Sherlock (and what a funny name that was) and be cold as ice for days if he said anything unnecessary. After the second year being stuck together in the dorm, Sebastian came up with a better plan, and started passing some "upgraded" cigarettes to his personal nerd. Two years later, Sherlock was steadily transforming into an obedient junkie.

That week-end they had set-up a blind group date with girls from the marketing major (the hot ones). Seb and his best mate, Lloyd, bullied Sherlock into coming. Having him there had the double advantage of impressing the girls with the fake psychic party trick and of making them look even cooler besides his lanky frame.

So, they met up at a bowling club, Sherlock dragging his feet behind Wilkes and his three friends. Ten minutes later, five girls arrived, all dressed up and in heels (how are they going to bowl anyway?). Well, except one, who looked simply resigned in her blue jeans and a grey tank top. When her turn of introductions came, she gave the group a tense smile: "I'm Joan, filling in for Harriet." Sebastian remembered Harriet Watson, a real babe, and scowled in disappointment. "She's my sis" Joan elaborated. "Said I should take a break, and that she'd rather spend the night with her girlfriend anyway." That hurt. Men gasped, girls giggled, already in the know.

Trying to forget the awkward moment, Lloyd butted in: "So, let's split up in pairs for the game."

**# #**

Sherlock didn't want to be there. He'd rather be in a lab, or at the anatomy lecture, than in this boring, pointless club. But Sebastian threatened to cut the drugs supply, and he really felt better with these pills than without. It helped him focus. He endeavored to make himself invisible, just trying to get this over with. The women were superficial and dull anyway. He had been going over his notes on modern criminal history in his head, when someone pulled his arm. "Jo, you should pair up with Sherlock here. He's not very good with a ball." The statement was followed by an obnoxious laughter. _Ugh, Wilkes._

"Don't call me Jo" replied a calm voice that promised dire retribution. Sherlock finally got a look at his newly assigned partner. _Athlete. Middle class upbringing. Medical student. Doesn't want to be here either._ He could work with that. She also managed to effectively shut up Sebastian, who blinked at her before dismissing the implied threat and laughing again. _He already had two shots of vodka._

They followed the group to the bowling alley, and hang back in silence, waiting for their turn. "What should I call you then?" Sherlock finally asked, mildly curious.

"I go by John" she said, voice gentler than it had been for Seb. "And you are Sherlock, right?" He nodded. "First time I hear a name like that, where is it from?"

"It's old English, I think. Never researched it though."

"I like it" John smiled. It made Sherlock feel unusually warm, and he quickly turned away, pretending to watch the game. "Are you good at bowling?"

"Never played. But it does look easy enough."

"I'm more of a rugby person myself…" _Ah, athlete, I knew it_. "… but it should be about a good aim, right?"

"Yes, obviously."

"Then we should be alright" she smirked. It was refreshing to not be the target of such an expression.

Their turn came, and Sherlock picked up a ball while his "friends" jeered. "Come on, Sher, don't hurt yourself!" Sebastian cackled. He tensed. This was unpleasant, and boring, and why was he even doing this?

Suddenly, Joan was at his side, glaring at the group. "Piss off, we gonna bring you down." She turned to him, a grim smile tugging at her lips. "Com'on, mate, let's show them who's the boss here." That stunned them into silence. Sherlock could feel Sebastian simmering with anger, and knew the consequences would be even more unpleasant for him, but right then and there, he didn't care. Someone was smiling **at** him and took **his** side. It had been a while since he felt that comfortable around anyone, even his own family.

He weighed the ball in his hands. _Estimating the curve. Estimating the speed. Estimating the force of impact._ His untrained muscles tweaked in pain, but he managed to throw the ball almost perfectly, hitting 8 out of 10. "Nice!" Joan praised, and he felt the blush rise again. He stepped aside, letting her take the second shot, and took the time to observe his new and unexpectedly interesting acquaintance.

Her blond hair was in a pixie cut, striking contrast from curly waves of the four girls she came with. There was a faint smell of antiseptic emanating from her clothes **and **hair, which made him deduce medical major in the first place. Tension lines already started forming on her face despite her early twenties, _long nights, good student_, but also laugh lines around her eyes, _easy-going, good friend_. Her body was lean, she clearly exercised a lot, exclusively outdoors. _Rugby, she said so. Not professionally, just a friendly game now and then. Spends time on her feet – evident from the state of her shoes – probably walks from home to uni. Around ten kilometers per day. Saving money._

Joan was examining the remaining kegs with a razor-sharp focus. She looked like a hawk, ready to dive down on its prey. She took three steps back, then two forward and threw the ball. It hit the first keg perfectly, then rebounded upon the second. "Spare!"

The group clapped weakly. None of them had managed to peg all ten kegs. Sebastian was glaring daggers at him. Sherlock didn't quite care.

**# #**

This group date thing was frankly boring, Joan decided. Harry owed her a good one for taking her place. The only bright thing in the whole debacle was this skinny kid, Sherlock, who clearly enjoyed this event as much as she did. It looked like he was bullied by the loud idiots he came with, and she felt bad for him. He was nice to talk to, if a bit nervous, but seemed to censor himself a bit too often. She tried to make him talk more, but they had to go to a dinner after the bowling, and having a private conversation became next to impossible.

The guys were flirting, going hard at it, and Harry's friends seemed to appreciate the approach. Joan sighed. _This is so annoying. _She exchanged a weary look with Sherlock, and they had to refrain from laughing.

"Ooooh, you haven't seen it yet!" exclaimed the obnoxious git she vaguely remembered as Sebastian. "Sherly here has a trick, you wouldn't believe it. Creepy as hell." Joan felt her temper rise. _Did this garbage drag Sherlock here just to show off and laugh at him?_ Sherlock's miserable face seemed to concur with her guess. "Come on, Sherly, show us!"

The other guys bought into the hype, and started banging their hands on the table, chanting: "The trick, the trick!" _What the hell… _Sebastian had a very smug look, and when Sherlock glanced at him pleadingly, the man just smirked, joining into the chant.

Joan was a very patient person, she had grown up with Harry after all. But she was not tolerating this shit. Grabbing a fistful of peanuts, she threw them at Sebastian, all the while maintaining a very calm façade. Everyone froze and stared at her in disbelief. "What's your problem?" The douchebag screeched.

Propping her chin on one hand, she eyed him skeptically. "I know a trick too. But you'd have to visit a dentist after that. Wanna try?"

"What?!" He looked shocked that anyone would talk to him that way.

She saw red. "Fine, I'll make myself clear, since you don't understand." Slamming her both hands on the table, John leaned forward, taking on her 'murderous' look as Harry called it. "You will eat your teeth if I catch you bullying again." Girls were now whispering disapprovingly at her side. _Fuck them too,_ she decided and stood up.

Her eyes fell on Sherlock, who looked torn between shock and glee. She caught his gaze. "There's a movie theater nearby. Wanna come?" He nodded hesitantly. "Let's go then" she grinned at him. As he stood up, she grabbed his hand and dragged him out of the restaurant.

They made it to the next block, when Sherlock suddenly stopped. "Why did you do that?" His voice was guarded, and when Joan turned to face him, she found a study in confusion and distrust.

She could only shrug. "I hate bullies. We're adults, should act like it." He stared at her for a second, before mumbling something. "Sorry, what?"

"Given your character, your medical career is clearly a calling" he said louder and froze like a deer in headlights.

"I never said anything about medicine" Joan drawled, crossing her arms on her chest. Sherlock looked like he wanted to disappear. "How did you know?"

He tugged at his long hair before his eyes hardened and he rumbled in a quick pace: "Your clothes and hair smell like antiseptic, a strong smell that always cling to people spending time in a hospital. There are spots from betadine on your left hand, difficult to get rid of, from three different occasions in the last couple of days, confirming the hospital assumption. You could have been a patient, but you exercise often, play rugby and walk long distances, so it is highly unlikely that you need long treatment. You do all-nighters, studying, common for medical students, as evidenced by your sister's urging for you to take a break and by tension lines on your face. Further, you have a pack of plasters sticking from your back pocket, a very unusual choice for a blind date event." He took a deep breath and stared at his feet. _What the actual fuck was that?_

"That was… so cool" she said, gaping at him in amazement. Silver eyes snapped up at her, wide. He clearly wasn't used to this reaction.

"Really?"

"Yeah, it is impressive!" She nodded to emphasize her point. "Very impressive. Do you, like… notice these things automatically, or do you have to really look?"

Sherlock's face lit up like a Christmas tree, and he started explaining his methods, talking too fast for her to catch everything. They spent the night together in a pub, talking over a beer. There were no awkward silences between them.

**# #**

Sherlock kept contact with Joan through university. She had visited him often, even beating up Sebastian on one memorable occasion (she thought he didn't notice, but her knuckles were bloody and Seb's nose was broken). She had noticed the drug use, of course, but contrary to his overbearing sibling, Joan didn't judge. She frowned, sat him down for a talk, and asked that he'd think about going to a support group. He went. A disappointed Joan was not something he wished to see again.

Then after a year, Joan announced that she had enlisted in the army, and was going on her first tour starting October, then to Sandhurst for officer training. Sherlock's little paradise came crashing down. He had yelled at her, in his righteous anger. Surprised, then furious, she yelled back. They said harsh things to each other, hurtful and cruel, and left each other seething.

The morning after the row, Sherlock felt guilty. Joan wasn't abandoning him, she was pursuing her dream, and trying to help as much as people as she could. He dragged himself to her family home, but her father explained in a clipped tone that Joan had left at five in the morning to stay with a friend in London before the deployment. He had scoured the city for the following week, but didn't manage to find her in time.

He fell back into drugs, now taking stronger substances, trying to smother the person he had been with Joan. Somehow, Mycroft pulled him from the pit he dug for himself, threatening and pleading to do something constructive with his life. There were periods of time where he functioned normally. Where he was a cynical, arrogant and unsensitive git, with a brilliant mind and a drive to solve crimes. Then something would remind him of his lost friend, and he would fall back into drugs again.

It was an endless cycle, and he knew it would end with an overdose one day. Mycroft also knew that, and it became unbearable to see the despair in his eyes every time they met.

Then during the latest 'clean' period, he had a flash of determination, and even moved to a better flat. But his personal funds wouldn't allow him to live alone, so he started looking for a flatmate.

And one day, a veteran limped into his lab, short blond hair now greying and tension lines clear on her face. "Bit different from my day."

Sherlock froze, dropper in hand, staring at this ghost he never expected to see again. "John" he exhaled, devouring her sight, trying to commit every little detail to memory – the warm clothes, the horrible cane, the bags under her eyes, the grey in her hair, the stubborn set of her jaw that didn't change, the fading tan, the darkness hiding in her blue eyes.

She got a better look at him, eyes widening in surprise. Then a gentle smile blossomed slowly, taking ten years away from her. "Sherlock."

**# #**

**A/N 2: **Yep, I still don't like Seb Wilkes.


	3. Mirrors

**Disclaimer: ****'**Sherlock' belongs to all the important people that you know. You recognize it, I don't own it.

**Warning:** Language; Mention of abuse; General violent vibe (yep, this is a fun one).

**# #**

"Evening."

The voice resonated through the empty pool. "John? What the hell...?" Shock didn't begin to describe what he was feeling right now.

"This is a turn-up, isn't, Sherlock?" Joan continued, eyes cold and sharp like daggers. She wore an uncharacteristic two pieces female suit, tailored to fit her perfectly, with a blindingly white shirt unbuttoned to show a hint of cleavage. "Bet you didn't see that coming."

He took several steps forward, unbelieving of what the evidence thrown at him showed. _John is the bomber. John killed innocent people. John deceived me. Who is John?_

A toothy grin, with no warmth whatsoever stretched her lips, painted bright red. "Relax, I am not the bomber." A door creaked on the other side of the pool. "He is."

"I gave you my number" said the new arrival. "Thought you might call." But Sherlock paid him no mind. The only thing he could see was that familiar face, his friend, cold, cruel and foreign.

"John… I don't understand…"

"Of course, you wouldn't" she drawled. "That was rather the point." An array of red dots appeared on the floor before rushing towards him, freezing him in his tracks. "This is Jim Moriarty, by the way" she nodded at the man who joined them. "Consulting criminal, your perfect counterpart." She narrowed her eyes at him. "And I am his main sponsor."

_She was playing me all along. Everything was fake, fake, every smile, every cup of tea, fake, fake, every laugh, every frown, fake, fakefakefakefakefakefakefake…._

"I think you broke him" Jim drawled, eyeing the frozen detective like a piece of meat.

"That was also the point."

"Who are you?" Sherlock choked out. "Was John ever real?"

Her laughter grated on his ears like sandpaper on glass. "John Watson died back in Afghanistan. You had never met her." She smirked at the horror painted clear as day on his face. "Farewell, Sherlock Holmes. You were fun to play with."

_His John never existed. John. Why, why, why, no, no, John, please…_

The woman clicked her fingers, and Sherlock closed his eyes, expecting the bullets.

That never came. "What the…" Moriarty started, but was cut abruptly by a deafening shot. He fell on his back, writhing in pain, blood rapidly soaking the suit over his stomach.

"Don't move" snapped an angry voice. Sherlock's vision blurred, because he was quite certain the owner of this voice stood snarling in front of him. But it came from behind.

"Next time you leave me for dead, make sure I actually am done for" continued the voice doppelganger, approaching them with measured steps. Sherlock was still frozen in place, not daring to look around. "I really thought you learned your lesson after Kandahar." The mysterious person finally appeared in his field of vision, advancing slowly towards the suited woman, steady hands aiming an army-issued gun directly at the opponent's heart. It was also a woman, dressed in jeans and a checkered shirt, ripped in some places, shoes muddy, short blond hair tangled and dirty, and sporting an impressive bruise on her right cheek. _John._ _Impossible._

"Just like a cockroach" the first Joan growled, eyes roaming the pool for an escape.

"Don't bother looking, Harry, all exits are blocked." _Harry?! _"You will surrender. Maybe I will even save your sidekick from bleeding out." Moriarty's moans of pains were growing quieter by the second.

"Fuck off!"

"Would you rather be killed?"

"You wouldn't dare. You're too good for that, ain't you, Johnny?" Something cold and cruel, similar to what 'Harry' was displaying all along, passed on Joan's face.

"You tried to kill me countless times since we were five. You hired Taliban to target my patrol. Your minions threatened my friends while you pretended to get better and taking your meds. You endangered, injured and killed innocent people. You drove Clara to suicide. You played with and hurt my best friend. Do you really think I can't chop your limbs off right now, Harry?"

Something clicked in Sherlock's mind. _Harriet Watson. John's sister. John's psychotic twin, apparently. John was real. __**John is real.**_

"You can't" said Harry with absolute certitude, mocking fury twisting her face in an ugly snarl.

"You're wrong" Joan simply answered before pulling the trigger. The impact made Harry step back, shocked into silence. "That's one to match mine" Joan stated coldly and shot again. It went through the other woman's knee, and she crumpled to the ground, screaming. "That's one to make you harmless." She had her back to Sherlock, but she could see the murderous tension in Joan's shoulders, the aim she took at her sister's head.

"JOHN!" he cried out, terrified of what was about to happen. The shot didn't go off. Slowly, her arms dropped to her sides, and she half-turned towards him, broken forms of feared criminals at her feet. There was unbearable sadness and grief in her eyes, drowning any other emotion. She didn't meet his pleading gaze.

Revolving doors slammed open, admitting a SCO team, followed by paramedics. Sherlock and Joan stood unmoving, seemingly unaware of the frantic activity around them. "John…"

She finally looked at him properly, raw suffering evident on her bruised face. "I'm sorry. I thought she was doing better."_ John, always blaming herself for others' shortcomings._

Throwing caution to the wind, Sherlock stepped forward and hugged her, because she looked like falling apart and he wanted to make sure her existence wasn't a drug-induced hallucination that would fade into nothing. The warmth against his chest was grounding enough. Startled at first, Joan hesitantly relaxed into his embrace. "You were real?" He didn't intend it as a question, but it came out as such, whispered into her hair. Blue eyes looked up, taken aback. Concern quickly dulled her own pain.

"Of course, dummy. Harry would have tried to throttle you the first time you used all the hot water."

Sherlock paused to drink into her sight - beaten up, emotionally drained, still caring about him and absolutely perfect – before responding: "While you waited until the third occurrence. I see."

And despite the direness of the situation, Joan giggled.

**# #**

**A/N:** This one happened because I tried to write evil John. As you can see, it didn't go completely in that direction. And I'm a bit sorry for Jim, getting his spotlight stolen, but oh well... tough life.


	4. Tale As Old As Time

**A/N:** This is a Victorian AU, but keep in mind I am no expert. Poetic license and all that.

**Disclaimer: '**Sherlock' belongs to all the important people that you know. You recognize it, I don't own it.

**Warning:** There are some violent scenes, be ware. Also, it is decidedly JohnLock-ish.

_**# #**_

Sherlock Holmes leafed through his mail with a heavy sigh. Given the surprisingly difficult task to find a suitable flatmate (the last candidate took offense at the chemistry set in the common living area), he had followed through some risky investments under the advice (_oh horror_) of his brother. The strategy paid up and now he was in possession of sufficient funds to cover the lodgings costs and even indulge in some experiments he had previously put aside due to the price of ingredients. It was all quite well but lacked any challenge. _Boring._

A new tenant had moved into 221c, the smaller flat downstairs, while he had been away on a case in Dorchester. _The neighbour better not think that his wishes for silent nights took precedence over my need to appease the burning mind with music_, Holmes thought darkly. He had to admit though that this addition to the building was a distraction from the mind-numbing emptiness between cases.

A window pane creaked downstairs and Sherlock spun into action, getting dressed in under three minutes clock in hand. The first impressions, after all, were important. Perhaps that chap downstairs could prove useful.

He walked calmly to the staircase, giving the time to the new tenant to exit his abode. The detective froze mid-step as soon as he caught sight of the person struggling with the iron key to 221c.

_A lady. Really now._

The woman (_blond hair bleached by sun, had recently returned from abroad; the shawl's embroidery is specific to the artisans in Northern India; straight back, good education; no jewellery, the dress is old-fashioned, restricted funds_) suddenly stopped fumbling with the lock and half-turned to observe Sherlock in turn. Her gaze was unusually alert for a female member of the society. She slid the quite heavy key in a pocket and walked to the stairs, eyes not leaving Holmes for a second. "Good morning. You must be Mister Holmes."

Her voice, clear and polite, pulled Sherlock from his mildly disappointed observation and he swiftly finished descending the stairs. "Pleasure to meet you, Miss" he greeted, shaking the offered hand (_callouses indicate the frequent use of the pen; small cuts in various stages of healing suggest manual work, perhaps cooking… no, no smell of grease, so most likely herbs; faint smell of pure alcohol, she is a nurse_).

"Joan Watson, at your service" she offered a polite smile. "Mrs Hudson told me a lot about you. I was looking forward to finally meeting you in person." The detective repressed a frown. He was not used to the polite interest displayed by the blond nurse.

"I hope your stay at Baker Street will be pleasant" he said to maintain the small talk.

"Oh, certainly so" the woman allowed herself a smile. "Please excuse me, I have urgent errands to run, but… We should take tea together this week."

They parted ways in the street with perfectly polite goodbyes. Watson looked like a decent woman, perhaps tight on money but polite and hard-working, which was not uncommon in these days. But there was something in her manner that troubled Holmes, who rarely paid attention to the ladies outside of his work. Something unusual. Perhaps the candour that the strict etiquette stifled in Londoners. It could be attributed to the long time in colonies. _I will simply take a walk. It would be a coincidence if my new neighbour goes in the same direction_, he decided.

Despite the warm weather, Miss Watson did not bring a hat (_what a faux-pas_) and trailing the shine of her hair had been ridiculously easy on the morning streets. Her walk was brisk and energetic, and he had the feeling that she was used to making long distances on foot. She slowed down on Great Ormond street and knocked on the side door of the Children's Hospital. A nun with a soft round face opened and smiled. "Joan, we've been waiting!"

"I came as soon as possible, Sarah."

_I was right, she is a nurse. A good one, I may say, _Sherlock noted while walking around to the main entry of the hospital. He was intrigued by Watson's skills. They might come in handy, after all.

Having bypassed the matron and two harried doctors with suspicions stains on their sleeves, Holmes found himself in the sick bay with rows of beds. The morning light was streaming through large dirty windows, lifting the gloomy atmosphere that used to reign in hospitals. Watson had had time to change into the white (_greyish_) uniform and was making rounds on the far-left side of the bay. He took time to observe her work. The nurse was kind and compassionate to the sufferers, always a soft smile, a reassuring word. She checked their vitals and scribbled prescriptions with calm proficiency, changed their bandages and applied salves without breaking her smile. _Yes, a good nurse._

Not finding anything else to investigate, Sherlock took off. Something was still bothering him about that woman, but he put it aside for later contemplation. The challenge's novelty wore off and he found himself faced with a new bout of boredom.

_**# #**_

A month had passed since Watson moved into the flat downstairs. She did not complain about foul smells from the chemistry experiments, nor the violin at ungodly hours of the night, nor even occasional small explosions and gun fire. She always greeted Sherlock with a smile and a hand-shake. Her demeanour was sincere. And yet, he found himself uneasy in her presence. There was definitely something unusual about the nurse. Not sinister, no, but fundamentally different.

His newest obsession had been put on hold by the summons from Scotland Yard. Disappearances of four boys, aged from six to eleven, had been reported in the poorest area of the city. The parents were inconsolable, and the constable finally decided to notify his superiors. Holmes didn't like cases involving children. It rarely ended on a positive note. But he could not refuse.

Having identified the area from which the children disappeared, he opted for a field investigation. Under the disguise of a retired mineworker, he had canvassed the streets for two nights before something of notice happened. There was a commotion outside of a pub, two young lads, encouraged by the alcohol and the small crowd were at it, shouting vague insults. It would have been harmless, aside from some bruises, until one of them pulled a knife.

Before Holmes could intervene, a short man rushed through the crowd and in an impressively executed manoeuvre twisted the knifeman arm so that he dropped the weapon. "Enough!" the newcomer growled, and the crowd fell silent. "What do you think you're doing?!" He released the knifeman who cowered away while cradling his arm. "I have seen enough young ones killed in a battlefield, I do not want to see it at home!" _Ah, a veteran._ He could not make out the features of the soldier in the badly lit street, but the voice was deep and strong, and strangely familiar.

"But Doc…" mumbled the second fighter, the one who missed his chance to get stabbed. "It's none of yer business!" _An army doctor, then._

"Do **not** make it my business!" the doctor pointed an accusing finger at him. "Your little brother called me to help, and by God I will help you two hotheads." Holmes searched the crowd for a moment, and spotted the small boy fidgeting nervously by a bulky bag. _In charge of guarding the doctor's bag._ Meanwhile, the doctor pulled both fighters by the ear to a bunch of wooden boxes and made them sit, to the delight of their friends. "What happened?" he demanded. The lads tried to explain their argument, interrupting each other. It seemed that the disagreement came from a game of cards. The doctor shook his head. "Is it worth stabbing your friend over? Is it, Matt?"

"No, sir…" Matt the knifeman muttered.

"No, indeed. Talk first about such small things, you pair of knuckleheads. As I said, do not make it my business." The properly cowed men nodded eagerly. The doctor pulled some coins from his pocket. "Here, have a beer on me."

"Thanks, Doc!" they chorused with huge grins on their faces. The crowd started to disperse towards the pub and the hero of the day (evening?) walked back towards the boy keeping his bag. Sherlock moved through the shadows to get closer.

"Good work, Arthur" the doctor said, patting the boy's head softly. He had the stature of straight man, clothes worn but clean and mended, the bag well used and patched. The blond hair under the bowler hat was perhaps a bit too long for higher society, but acceptable for a medical man working in the slums. _Someone that involved in the community will have noticed any suspicious activity. I need to talk to him._

The occasion was perfect. He'd have to approach the man with a minor injury complaint and gain his trust, enough to obtain the needed information. The man had picked up his bag and was making his way towards the back street when Sherlock caught up to him and called out in a Yorkshire accent: "Doc, wait!"

The doctor turned around to greet him and froze in shock. They were just under an old blinking street lamp and they could see each other rather well. Blue eyes, alert and cautious, stared at him in growing horror. "Holmes?"

The image clicked and Sherlock's thoughts screeched to a halt. "Watson?"

The woman, artfully disguised as a man (_even her gait changed, impressive_), paled significantly. She opened and closed her mouth. Inhaled through her nose. Narrowed her eyes at him. "Have a good night" she finally declared, turned on her heels and walked away, leaving an extremely confused detective in her wake.

_Her acting skills are top notch,_ Holmes noted while trying to catch up to the fleeing doctor (_Nurse? Soldier? Which one is it now?_). _The walk, the posture, even the voice is changed to fit the image. This is not a ruse she came up on short-notice._ Watson was briskly walking through silent streets, not quite running yet. She obviously was not happy about the encounter. At one corner, she stopped and turned to glare at her pursuer. It lasted mere seconds, then she took off running in a dark alley. _This woman… is interesting, _the detective decided, his mind already calculating Watson's trajectory and the fastest way to intercept her.

The chase lasted for four blocks, until Sherlock took a shortcut and blocked the doctor's path in a small passageway. She halted abruptly, almost dropping the medical bag (_would she have escaped without this burden?_). They were both breathless and could only gasp at each other in the dark. Having recovered enough, the detective was about to talk when a shrill scream echoed from the nearby street.

Without missing a beat, they took off towards it, Watson having an advantage by being closer to the corner. About twenty yards away, a tall man in an expensive coat was trying to drag away a struggling boy. Watson's bag hit the ground with a dull thud as she sprinted towards the abductor, Holmes on her heels. The man took a moment too long to notice them and failed to parry the right uppercut the blond doctor landed to his gut. He grunted, dropping the child, and she swept the sobbing boy away, retreating immediately behind Sherlock who knocked the criminal out with a well-placed hook. The detective busied himself cuffing the culprit, absently cataloguing minute details about him, while Watson tried to calm the child. "It is alright sweetheart, quite alright. You are safe now, do not cry." She ended picking him up in a tight embrace, the boy clutching at her like a lifeline. "He lives nearby, I will take him home" she stated over shoulder and walked off. Sherlock was sorely tempted to follow her, but he had a middle man to question. _What a choice, what a choice…_

_**# #**_

Joan had left the boy with his mother, who broke into tears at their sight. It took some effort to calm the whole family down and get back into the night. _Tomorrow is a day off, _she decided grimly.

"You dropped this" a baritone interrupted her thoughts and she startled badly. Sherlock Holmes emerged from the shadows, holding out her medical bag. _Damn._

Feeling trapped, she took it with a grateful nod. The man was staring at her expectantly. _Well, he can throw his expectations to the wolves, because I refuse to surrender._ "I presume we are walking in the same direction, aren't we?" She started walking in the general direction of Baker Street without checking whether her companion followed. Soon enough, his light steps matched her pace.

They crossed the town in silence. Watson had nothing to say to her neighbour. He was an interesting fellow, eccentric and intelligent, but her trust was not easy to gain. They reached their destination faster than she hoped. The man stepped back with a small smirk. "You are a cruel man, Mister Holmes" she sighed and resolutely stepped forward to open the door.

As expected, he followed her inside her apartment. _Detective, they said. A bloody annoying git, I say. _She dropped the heavy bag on the floor and the worn hat on the coat rack and threw a disapproving glare at the figure hovering in the doorway. "Tea?"

_Whatever possessed me to offer him drinks_, she wondered while they sipped the beverage, settled comfortably in the derelict chairs she had salvaged from the family estate. Holmes remained silent, aside from directions regarding his tea preferences. He had removed his ridiculous disguise and kept on dissecting her with his exceptionally sharp grey eyes.

Fed up with the tension, Joan put her cup in the saucer a bit more forcefully than intended. "Your reputation, Mister Holmes, says you can see through people and read their minds. So, tell me, what do you see?" she asked, leaning forward to look him straight in the eyes. She found that it unsettled most men.

He cocked his head to the side, like a cat about to pounce on its prey. "I see someone who had been to hell. You were a field nurse in the Northern India and saw the war up close and personal. You have been injured and discharged after recovering, collecting a small compensation that you invested wisely, allowing you, a single woman, to rent this flat." His baritone filled the room, with no judgement seeping through. Pure scientific interest. "I see a clever person, who had always performed above what was expected. You have knowledge and experience equal to trained doctors, and this… I suspect this comes from your upbringing. Second child of a provincial doctor, you were born into the profession. Your older brother had been failing to his duties since a young age, and this where your ruse comes from. You had been imitating, perhaps even replacing him at some functions since your teens. Such change in mannerisms can't be acquired over a short period of time, after all." The devil sipped his tea with an appreciative hum. "You are acutely aware of your position in society and you refuse to be limited by it. I see a kind person with high morals. You are not interested in fortune or fame. You work in a Children's hospital by day to supplement your income and you offer medical aid, free of charge, by night. You are athletic and far from helpless in a fight. I see a fighter. I see a dichotomy."

She stared at him, forgetting to breath. Finally, she forced a chuckle and took up her tea again. "Your reputation is… widely underestimated." It made him pause in surprise. "You are entirely correct." Holmes nodded in self-satisfaction. "Although… My father had been a mortician. My mother, a midwife. An interesting couple, these two." The detective muttered something along the lines of "there is always something" but kept quiet otherwise. Joan stood up, uneasy about her secrets being out in the open like this. "What are you going to do?"

"You are not committing a crime, Miss Watson" he drawled in response.

"You have obviously a limited knowledge of the current laws then. This issue aside, no doctor would set practice in that part of town. If you chose to remove me, these people will lose the only medical professional that cares enough to help them. Is that what you want?" She wondered if she was arguing her case too passionately, too strong. But she could not drop the matter. She could not resign herself to a role of a fragile damsel, ready to be married off to some accountant.

"It is not" Holmes stated coldly. "I do not see a problem in letting you pursue your activities, unless your intent is criminal." He raised a questioning eyebrow and she shook her head to deny any ill thoughts. "Then I will keep your secret, doctor" he said, standing up.

Watson stared at the dark-haired man in disbelief. It was the first time anyone had called her female self "doctor". The validating feeling was highly confusing and somewhat pleasant. "Thank you?" she managed to his evident amusement.

He made to leave but stopped after a few steps. "You have been to war. Seen trouble." He rounded up, towering over her short frame.

Joan looked up with defiance. "Yes. Enough for a lifetime."

There was a mischievous spark in the grey eyes. "Do you wish to see some more?"

_I should not trust him_, she thought, letting herself drown in the simple joy of being recognized for what she was. "Oh God, yes."

_**# #**_

After they had busted the human trafficking gang (they were abducting boys to sell them as servants to foreigners), Holmes and Watson kept a friendly relationship. Sherlock sought out the doctor's opinion on medical questions more often than not, and it led to some heated discussions about the use of one herb or another over the diner. Joan let the detective follow her on her nightly rounds and introduced him to some of her charges as the man to contact in case of trouble.

Three months later, Watson joined Holmes on official investigations as Doctor Watson, the war veteran, Scotland Yard none the wiser. Seeing the consulting detective in action had been a revelation to Joan. She felt like she was discovering a new facet to his brilliance every day, be it an obscure knowledge of tobacco ashes or leaps of deduction no one dared to imagine. Holmes found that Watson's input was usually well-reasoned and backed with facts, even if often tainted with emotional involvement. Her medical views could be considered unorthodox, but then again, she was an anomaly. An anomaly he started to appreciate.

_**# #**_

Watson had been gone for a week, visiting her parents in the country-side and Sherlock was bored. His experiment regarding the sleep and food deprivation was taking a toll on his physical capacities, and it was infuriating. He had an antidote to refine. He must have stood up a bit too quickly, because his vision darkened for a moment.

"Holmes!" called a familiar voice and soft, strong hands were pulling him up from the floor, guiding him towards the sofa. Grateful for the help, he slipped into a dreamless sleep.

The touch of a wet cloth on his brow brought him back to consciousness. The light had dimmed. He estimated his nap at three hours. "Watson" he whispered, recognizing the faint smell of antiseptic hovering over him.

The wet cloth was removed with an indignant huff. "My dear chap, how long have been starving yourself? Mrs Hudson had been sick with worry."

"An experiment" he weakly waved a hand.

"An experiment" she repeated in disbelief. He managed to crack an eye open and observe the disgruntled expression on his doctor's face. "You are no good to anyone if your body gives up." She was in her lady's clothes, dust on her sleeves, so just recently back from the trip, didn't take time to change in order to tend to him.

Sherlock attempted a smile. "It was important…"

"You were bored" she firmly cut to his excuses. "I presume it is a step-up from cocaine, but honestly, Holmes! You are a grown man, you must have some common sense left in that brilliant head of yours." Watson stood up, running a hand through her dishevelled hair. "Mrs Hudson will bring up your dinner and you **will **eat it. Doctor's orders" she said sternly and turned to leave.

"But you are no doctor" he tried to protest in an awkward fashion.

She froze in her track, back tense. _Oh. I offended her._ "I see" the woman purred in an unusual falsetto. "You wish to call a **real** doctor to examine you. I think your brother left a recommendation. I will see to that." _Oh goodness, she is furious._

He forced his weakened body to move and caught her by the wrist before she stormed off. "You are unnecessarily cruel, Watson." It was a pathetic attempt at an apology, he knew that.

Blue eyes glared at him from above. "Will you eat?"

"Yes" he admitted defeat and watched the angry doctor stomp away.

_**# #**_

"Doctor Watson, please give my regards to your lovely sister" Gregson said with a wink before disappearing downstairs. Inspectors from Scotland Yard had been coming and going frequently at 221b, and some had met Joan in her lady persona. Holmes had presented her as his colleague's younger sister, running an errand on John Watson's behalf.

When the front door closed behind the Inspector, Watson looked at Holmes, bemused. "What was that about?"

The detective smirked. "I believe, Doctor Watson, that your 'sister' has an admirer." She shivered in denial.

_**# #**_

Sherlock dispatched his opponent with a blow to the throat and ducked a punch from the right. He hoped that Watson had not run into trouble. They had separated to investigate the area and he had clearly hit the jackpot. Some imaginative fellow with too much strength to spare joined the fray with a wooden plank wrenched from some box. It was unforeseen and hurt like hell when smashed over the head.

Holmes fell to his knees, seeing stars. _I am done_.

A shot exploded in the night and a furious voice barked "Back off!" His attackers quickly dispersed. "Holmes! Holmes, look at me." Watson was trying to get his attention, a gun in her right hand pointed to the ground.

"I am alright" he assured but did not attempt to get up. She frowned in exasperation.

"You are concussed, chap. Do not try to fool me."

_**# #**_

They had been walking to the pub in company of Lestrade when some drunk idiot decided to mug them. He got Watson by surprise and held her as a shield, an enormous rusty knife pressed to her throat. "Gimme yer coins!" the brute growled. The doctor cringed at the smell of rotten teeth and cheap lager.

"Don't be daft, lad" Lestrade tried to diffuse the situation. "We are policemen."

This had the merit of agitating the man. "Shut up! Yer wallets!"

Watson remained surprisingly serene for someone in her situation. She caught Sherlock's eyes and quirked an eyebrow, as if saying "Amusing, isn't it?" Holmes did not quite partake in the feeling. "Let him go" he ordered.

"Nay!" the man bellowed, the knife digging into Watson's skin.

She narrowed her eyes, amusement gone. Sherlock realized belatedly what was about to happen. Without warning, the doctor went slack in the mugger's grip and he stumbled upon the shift in balance. Watson dropped down, disregarding completely the knife nicking her throat, then thrusted forward under the man's reach. Before any of them could react, she rammed her elbow under his ribcage. The unfortunate soul fell like a sack of potatoes and vomited, while Joan stepped back with an unreadable expression. Shaken out of their stupor by the pained moaning of the wannabe criminal, Lestrade and Holmes approached the scene. While the inspector cuffed the idiot, Sherlock towered over his companion.

No words were exchanged but he thought having expressed his disappointment in her recklessness rather clearly. She gave him a withering look and stepped away. Without a second thought, Sherlock put a hand on her right shoulder. "Show me" he demanded.

She lifted her chin, exposing the small bleeding incision on the soft skin. He was about to say something but the glacial look in her eyes stopped him altogether.

_**# #**_

It was a stormy day. Thunder roared over London. Holmes let himself go to melancholy, watching the heavy rain smash against his windows. His unproductive musings were interrupted by a timid knock. Watson stood at the door, unusually nervous and pale, fidgeting with the hem of her dress. "Would you terribly mind if I stayed with you for tea?"

"Not at all" he nodded from the sofa. The doctor let herself in and sat on the edge of the plush chair near the fire. Sherlock observed with lazy curiosity her fists clenching around the armrests. As a new crash of thunder cracked loudly above their heads, Watson shut her eyes tightly and took deep breaths. _Odd._ Joan had proven herself practically fearless. Although, Holmes did not yet have the occasion to be in her company during a thunderstorm. _Back straight as a rod, intense stress makes her fall back into military habits; tremors in the left hand, remnants of a traumatic event; flinching at the thunder… Ah. _"Cannons, isn't it?"

Tired blue eyes darted towards him in surprise. She had been surprisingly accepting of his tendency to deduce the smallest details of people's life. This time was not an exception. Instead of the usual anger at the indiscretion any other person would have heaped on the nosy detective, Watson simply gave a small nod before shifting her gaze towards the fireplace. "It is not so bad" she said barely loud enough for him to hear. "But today…" – another crash, another flinch – "…It has been a year." Sherlock frowned, trying to remember the whimsical articles about military successes he read in magazines a year ago. He recalled being repulsed by the optimistic tone of the journalist while listing hundreds of casualties.

He objectively knew that no battlefield was pleasant. But seeing how shaken Watson was somehow drove the message home. Sherlock had had hardships in his life, but he could always rely on his family's help to pull him back to safety. He had not experienced the hell many foot soldiers had lived in for months and years.

Joan let herself fall back into the chair, trying desperately to lose some tension. She was biting her lips, apparently on the verge of tears. Holmes absently noted that the burning feeling in his gut was in equal parts pity (_how miserable_), guilt (_there no comfort I can bring her_) and anger (_she should not have to live through this_). It was extremely confusing.

He reached for his violin without registering what his hands were doing, it had been a habit ingrained by sleepless nights and days of contemplation. As soon as the bow touched the strings, drawing the first notes of an obscure waltz, Watson's shoulders relaxed ever so slightly. Encouraged by this unexpected result, Sherlock stood up and stepped closer to the fireplace. The serene melody flowed under his fingers and Joan seemed to lean into the sound. She didn't flinch at the next thunder crash, too focused on the music.

He continued playing well into the night, even after his companion seemingly fell asleep. The storm passed. The only sounds in the flat were the soft crackling of the fireplace and the barely audible patter of the cold drizzle on the windows. Sherlock gingerly placed the instrument on the sofa and tip-toed to his room to fetch a plaid. As he wrapped it gently over the resting Watson, she breathed out "Thank you" without waking up.

He spent the rest of the night in the second chair, maintaining the fire.

_**# #**_

Joan woke to the yelling outside. _Four in the morning, thrice damned drunks!_ She grumbled before recognizing one of the voices. _Oh my…_

"Sister dearest! Help me!" Harry Watson was screaming from his prime position on the ground while a constable tried to shut him up. There was an empty bottle sticking from the older Watson's pocket. His coat and trousers were covered in mud, and his hair tousled. Overall, he was a mess.

Joan briefly entertained the idea of letting him get arrested, until he cried out: "Please, Jo!"

"Oh, Harry…" She ran down the steps, tightening the shawl on her shoulders. "Officer, please. This is my brother." The constable dropped the drunk's arm but seemed reluctant to leave. "Please. I will take care of him."

"By yourself, ma'am?" the lad enquired, evidently worried.

"I know my brother. Do not worry, he will not cause trouble anymore." Her earnestness ended up persuading the young man, who shuffled away on his patrol. Joan stood over her brother with a groan. "Com'on. Get up."

They managed to make it back inside, with lots of pushes and pulls from Joan and minimal involvement from Harry. The brother dropped on the armchair and begged for a drink. "Tea is all you will get here, Harry" the younger Watson called out in response.

After beating around the bush for half-an-hour (and some stern threats of dousing him with cold water), Harry finally confessed to what brought him at her doorstep. "I need help, Jo."

"Don't you always?" she countered with a frown. After her night rounds, she had only gotten a couple hours of sleep before her sibling showed up.

"I played again" he whined. Harry had a gambling problem, in addition to the drinking one. It was not the first time he came begging for money. Joan had steadfastly refused to lend him anything for years now. "With some terrifying people. They are going to kill me, Jo!"

Joan watched her brother bemusedly. The statement was quite dramatic, even for him. He looked genuinely distraught too. "How much?" she sighed.

"Forty guineas" he said, closing his eyes as if in pain.

"For…" she jumped to her feet. "Forty guineas! Are you insane?"

"Sorry…" the idiot moaned.

"This is more than I make in a year, Harry!" He only sniffed in response. "How bad?" she whispered angrily, afraid to have woken Holmes up with her outburst (_if he was even sleeping_).

"They cut the nose of the lad who could not pay" Harry announced with the most miserable grimace he could muster.

Joan dropped her head, defeated. She could not, in good conscience, let her brother be disfigured over some coins. She had around sixty guineas in savings, in case of an emergency and for medical supplies. It would be a hard blow on Doctor Watson's budget, but she could manage. "We will think of something, brother. Now sleep it off."

At dawn, she managed to get an address from a hung-over Harry, gathered the needed sum (_forty guineas, this bloody daft man…_) and sneaked out of the flat. She scribbled a note to Mrs Hudson about the guest and pinned it to her door.

"Going somewhere?" a baritone called from above. Holmes was leaning on the balustrade, looking rested and fresh.

"A family errand to run" she answered easily. "I shall be back for lunch."

He acknowledged it with a polite nod and disappeared back into his apartments. Smiling to herself, Joan stepped outside.

_**# #**_

Harry's 'investors' were operating from a shady pub with an Italian name near the docks. Sighing for the hundredth time, Joan pushed the greasy door. There were two dockers chatting in a corner and one lonely drunk nursing a lager two tables from them. The bar tender looked up from his books, surprised to see a woman walk in. "Can I help ya, Miss?"

Joan walked to the bar with a chin held high. _My brother may lack self-respect, but I do certainly not._ "I am here to pay Harry Watson's debt" she said calmly. The man's eyes widened, and a sleazy smile crept on his face.

"'Course, Miss. Let me get my books." He rummaged through a filing cabinet and pulled out an enormous folder. "Let us see… Watson, Watson… 'ere he is!" he pointed to the page and pushed the book towards Joan.

She leaned forward to verify the amount when a dirty cloth was forced over her mouth and nose. Startled, she jerked her head away, but the meaty hands of an unknown attacker held her in place. _Chloroform_, she realized with budding panic, as her vision darkened.

_**# #**_

Lunch time was nearing, and Watson had yet to return. Sherlock was bored. He thought briefly about starting a discussion with the not-interesting Watson downstairs but dismissed the enterprise as fruitless. What could that man say that he didn't already know?

For some time, he amused himself by reviewing and updating his mental listing on rare embroidery patterns from the colonies. This lasted until a loud crash resonated from 221c. Revolted that Harry Watson would start drinking again so soon, Holmes hurried downstairs. The flat's door was left ajar, and he could hear someone pacing and swearing inside. Carefully, the detective pushed the door open and observed the oddest situation.

The only material damage seemed to be the armchair, fallen sideways. A half-dressed man bearing strong resemblance to Joan was pacing the room, hands tearing at his greying blond hair and mumbling obscenities. "What in the world happened here?" Holmes asked loudly.

Watson the older stopped in his tracks, seemingly unsurprised to see a stranger in his sister's flat. "I am a disgrace" he announced after a hiccup.

Sherlock blinked, surprised to be in agreement with this individual. "Do elaborate."

"I asked for her help" the drunkard started to explain. "She always thinks of something to help, you know. But I am her brother! I should not have sent her there. Oh gods, what have I done? What should I do now?" He sat directly on the floor and started rocking back and forth. From this rambling tirade, Holmes concluded that this debris of a human being came to his sister for help with a dangerous affair. Evidently, Joan had accepted. Still, it was no reason to drown in despair hours after the fact.

"What happened?" he repeated his question more urgently. Harry pointed to a crumpled piece of paper on the floor by the door.

Feeling a cold dread creeping up his spine, Sherlock picked it up. "**Dear Mister Watson, your debt is considered paid in full. Your sister is a lovely collateral, but we shall keep the coins nevertheless. We hope to see you again at our gaming table.**"

He felt all blood drain from his face. _They __**dared**__ to abduct Joan Watson._ "Get up" he growled at the pathetic man. "You will help me rescue her."

_**# #**_

It was a very small, very dusty space, and it was moving. _Am I in a trunk?_ Joan kicked and screamed, until the movement stopped. "Let me out!" she yelled. Suddenly the lid opened, the daylight blinding her, and chloroform-imbued cloth was shoved into her face again. _Damn…_

_**# #**_

The workers Joan visited with a medical bag at night had been very helpful as soon as Sherlock explained the situation. "Doc's sister in trouble? Count on us." A small mob had formed with Holmes at its head, and they stormed the pub indicated by Harry Watson. The buggers had no chance. After checking the books pulled from a creaking filing cabinet, he stumbled upon a coded list of buyers and goods sold. A fairly simple code, at that, they could have put more effort into it. The last inscribed transaction indicated the sale of a "blond lass to Chestridge, 55gn". Taking a passing look at the other lines, he found that women were sold to that "Chestridge" at least once a month, but for a cheaper price. _The poor girls must have been taken from the streets. Their upbringing did not justify the price. What is he doing with them?_

While he was puzzling over the books, Joan's patients had made a number on the criminals. Sherlock just had to stroll towards the bloodied bar tender and glare at him. "Chestridge. Give me the name and the address." The miserable wreck cowered in fear.

Once he had the information, he jolted down a note to Lestrade and sent Watson to deliver it. The mob had been sent home with reassurances of a competent handling of the case. And then he ran to catch a train.

_**# #**_

Her head was splitting. While scarily effective, chloroform gave the worst headaches. Joan felt dizzy and sick. At least, she was not in a trunk anymore. _Where am I?_ She forced her eyes to open. It was a dimly lit bedroom, in dark colours. She was laying on a poster-bed, fully closed. A fire was crackling in the hearth. _I need to get out._ But her first attempt to move was halted by an unforeseen obstacle – her hands were tied to the headpost.

Panic started to rise again, as Joan pulled at the ropes with little to no success. _No, no, no, oh god, what is going on? _The door creaked open.

The man who entered looked very average, chestnut hair, good quality shirt. He looked harmless and perfectly normal. "Who are you?" Joan asked loudly. He grinned at her, eyes full of madness.

"You are the best one of my dolls" he stated with glee. "You cost the most."

_Cost? Was I sold? Damn it, Harry, see if I help you next time! _"I am not a doll" she said instead.

"But you are!" He bent over her, still grinning. She could smell his breath (_lemon and basilic_).

_No. I refuse._ Joan glared at him, as it was all she could do. It was not the clever thing to do though, as the grin morphed into an angry snarl and he slapped her. The dizziness returned ten-fold. Still, she turned back to glare again at her captor. He slapped her again. Then long fingers wrapped around her throat, tightening slowly their grip. _No, no…_ Watson trashed uselessly on the bed, trying to dislodge the hands from her neck, gasped for air, before her body gave up and she passed out.

_**# #**_

The telegram from Scotland Yard had reached Luton in time and four constables were awaiting Holmes at the train station with carriages. He gave them brief instructions and they were off.

_**# #**_

She felt sick. Her whole body ached. Joan moaned in pain.

"Good doll" said her torturer. "Can you cry?" She weakly shook her head. "You will" he 'reassured' her.

Her limbs felt heavy like lead. Breathing was painful. Then there was iron cutting her dress over her stomach, just enough to expose some skin. Joan tried to jerk away but was just slapped again for her troubles. _Damn it._

The man was muttering something under his breath, he sounded perfectly content. She closed her eyes to gather some strength. Something sizzled in the madman's hand. Then it burned. Joan screamed.

_**# #**_

They had barely knocked on the door when the ungodly scream echoed from inside. Overwhelmed with fury, Holmes kicked the door under the lock, and it flew open in the face of a middle-aged butler. With no regard to the man moaned on the carpet, the detective rushed inside, following the commotion.

Some harried servants tried to intercept him but were taken down by the policemen. Joan's screams resumed. He kicked off another door and was met with the scene that made his blood boil. A man - Chester Floridge - was standing over a bound Watson, pressing a hot iron on her stomach. It took Holmes all but two seconds to break the man's arm and smash his head on the bed post. The madman fell in a trail of blood, his torture tool sliding to the floor with him. Aware of the incendiary risk, Holmes tossed it in the fireplace before tending to Joan.

She was barely conscious as he cut through the rope on her wrists. The distinctive smell of chloroform hit his nostrils and he winced. _She would have beaten them all silly if not for this chemical. _"Holmes…?" her whisper brought his attention back to her. _Left cheek swollen, he hit her; eyes unfocused, bloodshot, possible concussion; red marks under the collar, she had been strangled._

"Who else did you expect, Watson?" he snapped without malice. His nerves were frayed as well.

"I don…t feel so well…" she shared before passing out completely. Taking great pleasure of stomping on Floridge's broken arm, Sherlock pulled a blanket from the bed to cover his friend. Once he finished wrapping her up like a mummy, he gathered her in his arms and left the room without looking back.

_Joan is surprisingly light for someone who exercises regularly, _he noted while barking orders at the constables.

_**# #**_

The carriage took them back to London. Sherlock kept Joan cradled in his arms for the whole trip, afraid to worsen her injuries. He carried her to 221c where most of the medical supplies were and sent Mrs Hudson to the Great Ormond Street Hospital to fetch 'Sarah'. It took way too long in his opinion for the nun to arrive, followed by a grey-haired doctor. They pushed him out of the room and busied over the sleeping woman. The minutes were excruciatingly long. Finally, the pair left, leaving precise instructions about the patient care.

And Sherlock was left to simmer in his murderous rage towards all and sundry (_except Watson_). He was angry at Harry Watson for dragging his sister into this mess. He was angry at the muscle-heads at the pub for daring to abduct Joan Watson and other girls before her (_God knows what happened to them_). He was even angry at Mrs Hudson, Sarah and that doctor for taking so long to treat Joan. He was furious at himself for letting it happen and at Scotland Yard for never noticing the abductions. He was ready to snap the neck of Chester Floridge for being a mad killer.

And the worst, the worst of all, was that he had no way to vent all this rage, because he refused to leave Watson's side even for a second.

_**# #**_

Joan woke up the next morning with a spectacular migraine. She moaned in pain and nearly jumped out of her skin when someone's soft snoring ended in a snort. "Watson!" exclaimed the familiar baritone.

Joan squinted at her neighbour and friend through eyelashes. "Present." She could barely see his face. The man had clearly been sleeping in a chair. _Isn't he a little too pale?_ "How are you, Holmes?"

"How…" his voice caught in a hitch. "How am I." Joan felt perplexed as to why her innocent question brought so much emotions to the man's voice. Meanwhile, the detective stood up and left the room without a word. _What just happened?_

_**# #**_

Three days later, she was strong enough to leave the bed, thanks to Mrs Hudson's mothering. Holmes did not deign to show up since that first morning. Harry, however, came crying and begging for forgiveness, which she readily granted as soon as he reminded her about the events that led to such an emotional display. Her brother left the city with a promise to stop gambling (_should hold for a year at least, _she assessed clinically).

Joan climbed up the stairs to 221b, cursing the weakness in her legs. The flat was literally filled with tobacco smoke, thick as a wall, and she started coughing uncontrollably. There was a loud crash somewhere inside, hurried steps and a window opened. Soon enough, the air cleared, and a haggard-looking Sherlock stood before her. It took her only one glance to assess the damage. "Have you eaten?" she asked dubiously. He looked at a loss for words. "I came to apologize for the whole debacle" – he started frowning dangerously – "and to thank you for saving my life." The lost look was back. _Men are such children._ She smiled. "On the grounds of owing you a life debt, I will take it upon myself to keep **you **alive by making you partake in regular meals. Are you agreeable to this arrangement?"

It must have been the first time Sherlock Holmes stared dumbly at anyone. Then he chuckled, a bubble of a rich laughter finding its way out. Seconds later, they were both laughing to the point of losing their breath.

"Agreeable?" he managed between hiccups of mirth. "I am not letting you out of my sight ever again."


	5. The Bridge We'll Never Cross

**A/N:** So... This is a cross-over with Nolan Dark Knight trilogy (don't ask, I don't know _why_).

**# #**

They had been a strange presence at the edge of each other's lives. A loose end flailing to the wind that neither wanted to sever completely.

Their first meeting had been rather dramatic. It was during Bruce's short stint in London. Sometimes his off time boiled down to drinking in a dingy pub and giving the stink eye to anyone trying to engage into a conversation. Apparently, it had irked the local thugs enough that they called him out on it, and he ended up in an alley, facing five drunk, angry and knife-wielding opponents. The runaway heir had been quite confident in his ability to take them down without much fuss, but was taken by surprise by a sixth thug coming from behind and slashing at his ribs. There was already blood from a split brow hindering his vision, and the unexpected pain made him lose ground, which his attackers took advantage of.

Bruce stumbled against a wall and slid down to avoid an impressive right hook. Blood was oozing from several rather deep cuts and definitely ruining his tattered clothes. _That's a stupid way to die_, he remembered thinking as a burly man smirked above him and raised the knife for a final stab.

The blond fireball that came out of nowhere and kicked the weapon away had not bothered to call out before jumping into the fray. Grounding the heavy combat boots into the dust, the newcomer stood over Bruce's slumped form, fists curled into white-knuckled balls. "Go away" she growled, ready to rip and maul. Bruce stared at the woman in horrified amazement. The sentiment had been shared by his assailants, who shifted uneasily, until the bravest of the set attempted to step forward. He got kicked into the balls and punched under the chin for his troubles.

"I **said**. Go. Away" she snapped, and surprisingly enough they scooped up their fallen friends and shuffled away, murmuring about the "crazy army chick" that had a reputation around here.

The woman glared at their retreating backs for a moment, before turning towards him and kneeling down. "You shouldn't pick fights" she said matter-of-factly, the gaze going from one bleeding cut to another. "Damn, mate…" she huffed and went to touch him, but Bruce was having none of it.

He swapped away the helping hand and attempted to sit up despite the dizziness that threatened to overcome him. He got pressed back against the wall by a firm hand to his chest. "Stay still, idiot." She glared at him half-heartedly. "I'm a doctor, let me check." Unable to contain a petulant frown, Bruce looked away while the woman ran gentle fingers over his vitals. "Nothing broken, lucky you. But this and this" - she pointed to the cuts on his leg and his brow – "will need stitches." She stood up, and to his surprise offered him a hand and a smile.

Hesitant, but too dizzy to complain, he took the hand and hoisted himself up with a wince. This was not a pleasant sensation at all.

"Right" she said, taking in the greyness of his face. "Follow me." He did.

She led him to a smallish flat (_military lodgings_, he noticed absently) with barely enough space for a bed, a couch and a desk. Bruce was ordered to sit on the old couch, that creaked ominously under his weight. His blond saviour rummaged through the desk drawers to extract a fully packed medkit. She proceeded to patch him up in complete silence, cutting the dirty cloth when needed, disinfecting, numbing and stitching with practiced efficiency.

He took the time to observe her, only to realize there was nothing extraordinary in her appearance. Average height, lean build, short blond hair bleached by the sun. Callouses on the small hands. Stubborn chin. Sharp blue eyes that seemed to switch from icy focus to summer warmth with ease.

The tug of the stitch on his thigh pulled Bruce from his musings. "All done" the woman smiled up at him, her hands busy to gather the medical supplies spread on her lap and the couch.

"Thank you" he choked out, having gotten unused to simple kindness during the past couple of years.

"So he talks!" The woman laughed lightly, and went back to the desk. Bruce attempted to get up, only to be stopped by a stern "Nope. You, mister, are going to get a full night sleep" she said, pointing to the bed.

He blinked. She frowned. Bruce shuffled towards the bed, tugging off his jacket. Once she made sure her patient was snuggled under the blanket, the still unnamed medic smiled (she did smile a lot), pulled out an enormous book from under the bed and settled on the couch. Bruce was thoroughly confused at this point. "Aren't you worried?" he finally asked.

Blue eyes glanced at him with a mix of fond laughter and serious contemplation dancing under the carefully neutral surface. "These guys ran away from **me**. I think I can handle you" she said in a voice more suited to discuss sports than potential threats. And while Bruce tended to disagree with her assessment, he respected her abilities and confidence. They didn't talk for the rest of the night.

In the morning, when she had fallen asleep on the couch, still hugging the book, he quietly got up. After a quick inspection of the flat to determine the woman's identity, he left like a ghost.

A couple of hours later, Joan Watson woke up and was very miffed to find her patient gone. The irritation subsided a little when she discovered a red rose wrapped in a "thank you" note in her mailbox.

**# #**

The second time he'd seen her, she never knew of his presence.

Bruce had been basically hiking through the Middle-East, and ended up in a remote Afghani region. There were UN troops stationed in the city, and he watched them mingle in the open market for a while.

The peaceful scene was shattered by an explosion, wails and screams replacing the chatter of a normal day. Ears still ringing, but otherwise unhurt, Bruce ran towards the ground zero. A group of army blokes sprinted out of an adjacent street, and hurried there as well. Most of them wore red cross straps. A blond medic rushed past him, and Bruce froze in recognition. Meanwhile, Joan Watson already dropped near an injured man, hands applying pressure to the gaping wound on his side. "Bill!" she barked and another medic appeared at her side. "Pressure!"

The efficiency of the medical team under Joan's command had appeared impressive to an untrained individual such as himself. He stood back, feeling rather useless and fascinated at the same time. After a long hour, the injured were triaged and transported to the hospital. Joan had swirled around, slightly crazed eyes looking for another patient on the ground, in the crowd, and Bill (her nurse, Bruce surmised) put a calming hand on her shoulder. She stared at him for a moment, looking a bit lost, then sighed, a tired and crooked smile tugging at her lips. "Let's go, they'll want all hands on deck." She ran a hand through the short hair, smearing blood and dirt all over her forehead. Bill chuckled and passed her a tissue.

As they walked away through the abiding chaos, Bruce caught himself thinking that he had rarely seen a more beautiful person than Joan in that moment. The image burnt itself in his memories, and kept remining him over the years of why he was fighting. _Of the right thing._

The next day, an exhausted Doctor Watson stumbled into the break room, looking for coffee and perhaps some biscuits. Her favourite mug was already there, filled to the brim with a suspiciously good coffee. Too tired to care, Joan picked it up and blissfully sipped the hot beverage. Her fingers caught onto something unusual though, and she unglued a post-it note from under the mug. It was skilful drawing of a red rose. Bemused, Joan slipped the post-it in her pocket. She never got the heart to throw it away, but after she had been shot, the little rose got forever lost in the desert's sand.

**# #**

"You're enjoying every second of it, don't you?" Joan asked, seemingly exasperated.

"Obviously" Sherlock snorted in reply, strolling towards their hotel. The doctor shook her head and followed the long strides with practiced ease.

They had been called to Gotham, of all places, by its mayor, as a huge favour to one Mycroft Holmes. While still sulking about being traded like a rare resource, Sherlock was rather excited by the challenge of identifying the masked vigilante. Both of them just spend several hours perusing the numerous reports and witness statements at the Gotham police station, and as a bonus, getting a wide range of glares from the assembled police force. Joan simply decided that it was a normal reaction of the law enforcement to Sherlock's arrogance, whatever the country they ended up in.

The vigilante they were tracking, the Batman, was smart, influential and clearly as crazy as they get. Glancing at the grinning madman walking at her side, Joan sighed. She wasn't exactly in a position to judge the craziness. After all, she spent her time tailing a man who kept eyeballs in microwaves.

They had almost made it to the hotel when an expensive black car slowly came to halt in front of them. Sherlock scowled, and Joan fell into a defensive stance. "Mycroft didn't follow us here, did he?"

"No" her companion drawled, a hint of worry in his tense shoulders.

The passenger door opened, and an impossibly handsome man in an impossibly expensive suit got out. And strode straight towards Joan. Sherlock grumbled and prepared to fight, while Joan just stared at the newcomer with a sense of a twisted déjà-vu.

"It's good to see you, Doctor Watson" the unknown man said with a genuine smile, and something clicked in her mind, a memory so fleeting that she was surprised she still had it.

_The stray in the alley, the red rose in the mailbox._ She knew the consulting detective was now glaring daggers at the man, but somehow it didn't matter. Her eyes searched the familiar, yet foreign, face. She made an aborted gesture to touch his brow, where she had applied the stitches so many years ago. "Glad it didn't leave a scar" she smiled at him.

He nodded knowingly and held out a hand, finally introducing himself. "Bruce Wayne."

Joan's brain froze in a stunned stupor. _Wayne? __**That**__ Bruce Wayne?!_ She went to shake his hand out of habit, but Bruce caught it and bowed to press a gentle kiss on her knuckles. Joan blushed, unable to formulate a coherent thought, let alone a sentence. _You don't meet playboy billionaires on a dreary street in a dreary city every day._

She was rather glad that her companion had had enough, and butted in: "Sherlock Holmes." Startled, Bruce briefly eyed the lanky detective before shaking the offered hand. The handshake took entirely too long, and the ensuing glares between the two men were nothing but hostile. "Um…" Joan started, but got interrupted.

"You will excuse us, but we have work to do" Sherlock declared, grabbed her hand and pulled her along.

"Wh… Sherlock!" she sputtered indignantly.

"The case, John!" was the only reply.

Exasperated, Joan wrenched her hand away and turned towards the bemused rich boy. "Sorry, but we are indeed busy. It was great to see you again, Mr Wayne." She nodded and hurried after her friend, feeling something squeeze uncomfortably in her chest at the thought of Bruce.

**# #**

Sherlock had arrived at the conclusion that Batman was a man in his early thirties, native to Gotham and insanely rich. They had been plotting to infiltrate the latest charity event held in the city that was sure to assemble all their suspects at once, when someone knocked at the door of Sherlock's room (for once, they had separate rooms while travelling). A delivery boy dragged a large box inside and left them with a wink.

Inside, there was a perfectly tailored suit for Sherlock and magnificent blue dress for Joan (_and wasn't it creepy_).

"Please tell me Mycroft doesn't know my measurements" she pleaded, while examining the high heels that came with the dress.

"No" Sherlock answered, his hands buried in the box. "But your rich friend does" he amended, pulling out an invitation for two to the party they wanted to infiltrate, a red rose printed in the left upper corner.

**# #**

Sherlock had accepted to attend, sulking all the way to the penthouse. Joan tugged at her dress again, not comfortable in the fancy clothes. "You look fine" the detective huffed when she fiddled with her ridiculously small bag for the umptieth time.

"How am I supposed to fight in this?" she hissed back.

"We're supposed to investigate, not brawl" he chided, but the barely concealed mischievous smile told her otherwise.

"I have heels and I **will **step on your feet, Sherlock."

"Fair warning" he laughed off the threat, and they entered the party.

They didn't mingle, but stood near the buffet, glasses of champagne in hand, and watched over the guests as covertly as possible. They witnessed Bruce's flamboyant arrival and speech with various degrees of disbelief. "He's faking" Sherlock whispered into her ear. "He is not an air-head everyone thinks he is."

"Don't I know" Joan whispered back. She remembered the bloodied man in the alley. She could imagine what the rest of his 'missing' years had been like.

They saw Bruce talk to a pretty brunette on the balcony, soon joined by Harvey Dent, the hero of the day. Sherlock's intent stare in that direction made something churn in Joan's stomach. She knew that stare.

"It's him" Sherlock suddenly not-quite-shouted, making some heads turn in their direction.

"What?" she tried in vain to delay the inevitable.

"It's Wayne" the detective chattered excitedly, if not a bit quietly. "Our mysterious crime-fighter."

Joan stared at him in disbelief, then at Bruce who smirked mindlessly at some dignitary on the other side of the room. "Oh, bloody hell" she managed to breath out, so many things making sense now. "What do we do?"

Sherlock looked conflicted. But their indecisions were cut short when armed men invaded the party. Joan's instincts took over, and she was about to jump to the defence of the hostages, but Sherlock's firm grip on her arm held her back. "Let go!" she growled, watching in growing horror as the newly arrived maniac threatened an old man with a knife.

"No, John" Sherlock hissed, looking tense and pale. "You'll only get yourself killed." The pretty brunette that had been with Wayne and Dent drew the attention to herself, and Joan tried to intervene again, only to get pulled back by two strong arms around her shoulders, the detective almost glued to her back. "John, please, no" he pleaded. "There are too many of them."

She watched helpless as the Batman made an entrance, and the lady got thrown out of a bloody window, immediately followed by the masked fighter. "Oh god." She sagged into Sherlock's arms as the armed criminals quickly fled from the scene.

**# #**

She caught a glimpse of him, still in costume, lurking in shadows while the guests filed out of the penthouse into awaiting ambulances. Sherlock had been too busy snapping at the poor local policemen to notice her give him the slip. The Batman seemed to stare in disbelief as she made her way into his hiding corner, but it was difficult to identify any of his expressions under the armour.

"Nice party" she stated, unsure whether she should feel angry, amazed or confused. "Next time, let me know to bring a weapon." He didn't say anything, but didn't leave either. Joan locked her eyes with his dark ones. "Can I help?" She knew that she could be of use. She knew that Bruce knew.

They had met only twice, and exchanged only a few phrases before that night, but she could let everything go to help that man. It was a painful feeling that coiled tight inside her chest, something similar to what Sherlock made her feel sometimes, but different, much more gentle and bitter at the same time. The 'what ifs' formed an endless chasm between them.

He remained silent, something soft and sad flickering behind the mask, and Joan knew that they were not going off their chosen paths. They were just passing by, again, just another chance encounter in the vast ruins of their respective lives.

"Right" she nodded, breaking the eye contact. "Stay safe then." And she went back to the orange lights, and the bored consulting detective that had not noticed her brief absence.

**# #**

The next morning, Mycroft finally called, and practically manhandled (i.e. sent his minions to pack and drive) them both to a private jet heading back to London. "You have solved the puzzle, Sherlock, there is nothing for you to do there." And only the prospect of Joan being involved in a gang war had made the younger brother yield.

Standing on the tarmac, duffle bag in hand, Joan remained still. _Just one last look_, she kept repeating in her head, expecting something (_anything_) to pop up and spirit her back into Gotham's underbelly. It was utter madness, but she was unable to abandon it.

"John?" Sherlock's voice, slightly panicked, made her snap back to reality.

"Coming."

**# #**

A year later, Joan stared at the telly with growing horror, tears finding their way down her cheeks. The footage of the explosion, and the speaker repeating that the Batman heroically flew the bomb out of Gotham, were like burning needles under her skin. She didn't know why she cared so much, but Bruce's death felt like a terrible blow. Her insides felt like ice, and it was painful to breath. Joan curled on the sofa, eyes glued to the screen.

Sherlock found her in that spot an hour later, having been to Bart's for an experiment. He frowned at her distressed state, then at the telly, and snorted in derision. "He's alive, you know?"

Barely able to process, Joan stared at him blankly. "What?"

"He clearly got away" Sherlock stated while draping his coat over a chair. "Why do you care anyway? You've known him for a total of fourteen hours."

That was painfully true. But it didn't change the feeling of loss. "I don't know" she answered the curious detective. "It's… like a bridge I've never crossed, and now it's collapsed, so I will never have the chance to go to the other side."

For once, her flatmate understood the metaphor. "Nonsense, John. You just have to cross the next bridge down the stream."

**# #**

The pain from Bruce's presumed death was nothing compared to the torture of seeing her friend up on that roof. "Don't. Please, don't" she pleaded on the phone.

"Goodbye, John."

"Sher…" She saw him throw away the phone. "Sherlock!" Joan yelled in desperation, but her words were late, too late, and he was falling, falling, _oh gods, no, no, no…_

**# #**

They had wheeled away the gurney with Sherlock's lifeless body, but the blood, still fresh and red and shiny, nagged her from the pavement. Joan had collapsed on some type of box piled along the wall, and hadn't moved since, staring at the proof of her friend's mortality. There was a crowd, and sirens, and mutters, but she just remained a breathing statue of shock.

"John?" A familiar voice tugged at her consciousness. "Jesus, what happened here? John?" A warm hand fell on her shoulder, making her startle violently.

Blue eyes met tired brown. "Greg?..." she breathed out. Once pulled from her stupor, the reality started catch up to her.

"You alright?" Lestrade eyed her worriedly. "Where's Sherlock?"

The question broke the floodgates. "He… he's…" Unable to talk or even breath, Joan curled into a ball, shaking with dry sobs. She vaguely felt a distressed Lestrade draw circles on her back, trying to find some sense in her muffled whimpers. Then he must have noticed the blood on the pavement, and it clicked. "Oh god." He sounded broken, so broken. "Oh god, no, he didn't. No."

His pain made her own shock fade back, and Joan straightened slightly. "I gotta go" she whispered to no one in particular. "Gotta go home."

**# #**

There was a void in her chest that nothing could fill. Losing the eternal 'what if' of her odd relationship with Bruce was like losing a finger or a toe. She could live without it and forget most of the time, and still occasionally crave the missing part of herself. Losing Sherlock was like being forever stuck just a beat away from cardiac arrest.

"Are you sure?" Greg asked again. They were standing near the EuroStar, her bag at their feet.

"Yes" she sighed. "I need a change of air."

He nodded, managing to be understanding and sad at the same time. Minutes later, Joan boarded the train to Paris, uncertain of when and if she would come back.

**# #**

Joan wandered around the city of light, bored and restless. Her middle-school level of French didn't get her too far, but she managed to get some groceries and an ice cream from a street vendor. The days stretched into a continuous walk, sight-seeing, eating, sleeping, crying silently on a bench.

She didn't want to grieve.

One day, she stumbled upon a young girl crying by herself in a park. Joan stopped and talked to her. She accompanied the girl (Marion) home to pack up her things, and swiftly disposed of the violent boyfriend who tried to protest. She left Marion at her parents' place, at the other side of the city, with a soft smile and a promise to visit.

Helping someone in need made her forget just a little. Just for a little while.

"Still picking up strays, I see?" said a voice she had never expected to hear again.

Slowly, Joan turned to face a grinning Bruce Wayne. The initial surprise morphed into happiness, and she was about to hug him when her mind remembered Sherlock's impertinent voice saying: "He's alive, you know?"

And here was the gaping hole in her chest again, howling, and making her curl upon herself instead of smiling. Bruce shifted uneasily at the quick succession of emotions on her face.

"Well, I didn't expect the silent treatment" he shrugged, looking a bit disappointed.

"Oh, sorry, no…!" she stumbled upon her embarrassment and ever-present pain. "I'm so happy to see you." She managed a teary-eyed smile. "He said that you were alive."

Elegant eyebrows shot up to the hairline. "He?"

Joan closed her eyes, because it took everything she had to even whisper that name. "Sherlock."

There were strong arms around her, and a smell of an expensive cologne. "I'm sorry, John."

She hiccupped in the crook of his neck: "I'm fine. Sorry." They parted, and she finally ran her fingers over the faint trace of stitches applied by them eons ago. "You look great" she managed more steadily. "What have been up to?"

Bruce studied her face for a long moment before smiling back, a genuine happy smile she suspected he didn't offer often to the world. "Oh, this and that. Selina was rather insistent to visit Paris, and it seems to have been a great idea, after all." Joan scrunched her nose in an effort to remember who exactly 'Selina' was, before the extracts from files Sherlock had so helpfully forgotten on the dinner table came to mind. _Oh, right, Catwoman._

She smiled, leaving aside her own grief and pain for now (on the backburner, always there, always simmering). "Oh, you lucky man. Did you escape from the shopping session?"

It turned out that yes, indeed, Bruce had left Selina with a limitless credit card in the Printemps mall. He had an estimative three hours to spare, and practically dragged Joan to a small café. He looked healthier and happier that she had ever seen him, in life or in tabloid stolen photos. She thought that Selina must have helped a lot with that, and smiled to herself. They talked about small nothings, Italy, and Alfred moving to Florence in secret, carefully avoiding the topics of Gotham and consulting detectives.

A street vendor with hands full of flowers popped into the café, and to Joan's surprise Bruce beckoned him over. A banknote changed hands and the doctor was presented with single red rose. Feeling her heart twinge in half-remembered yearning, she chuckled and accepted the gift. "Thank you."

Bruce's mischievous smile faded to seriousness. "You saved me once, a beaten-up man without a name. Two flowers and a gown is the least I could offer as thanks."

Joan ran a gentle finger over the soft petals, not looking her coffee companion in the eyes. "I didn't do it for the eternal gratitude or anything. It was simply the right thing to do. I'm sure you understand **that**." He nodded. After all, this man had died for the right thing. Feeling suddenly out of place, Joan pushed her half-empty coffee cup away. "Why didn't you let me help?" She didn't know that she was still salty about it until that very moment.

Bruce's dark eyes dimmed a little. "I'm not certain" he finally said, the steady gaze never leaving her face. "You were one of the few I truly trusted, despite knowing you for less than a day." That, she could sympathise with. _Pink!_ shouted the ghost in her heart. "And if we had let it grow…" He stopped to stir his cooling drink. "It wasn't there yet, but I was terrified of losing it already."

"And then we both changed too much to ever click together again" she finished for him with a sad smile. That bridge collapsed long ago, perhaps already gone by the time Joan talked to the Batman. And Sherlock had been wrong, for once – there was no "next bridge downstream" for them. Only fond memories of things that had never been.

They sipped their cold coffees in friendly silence. It was a conclusion, not the one they ever expected, but a closure nonetheless. _At least one of us ended up happy,_ Joan thought with longing.

Bruce's phone chimed with a text alert, and Joan lost herself in memories of short texts signed "SH" for a second. Prying herself from the omnipresent reminders of the glorious past, she asked: "Time to go?"

"Yes" her friend replied absently, typing something on the small screen. "You should come to diner with us, John" he added, tucking the device back into his pocket.

"We'll see." They paid and made it out on the street. Joan twiddled with the rose, almost getting pricked by the thorns. "Stay safe then" she smiled, kissed his cheek and turned to leave, already half-way lost in her circling thoughts. She missed the flicker of resigned determination in Wayne's eyes, and stopped only when he grabbed her forearm.

"He's alive, you know?"

Joan's world came to a halt, then started spinning madly again, while she stared at Bruce and a crazy, untameable hope exploded where the void had resided. "What?"

The man had the gall to smirk. "Takes one to know one" he said with a shrug.

And with that, Joan chuckled weakly through tears that kept running down her cheeks.

**# #**

**A/N2: **I have half-a-mind to try writing Sherlock getting saved and yelled at by a Batman & Joan combo (can't get more badass than that), but I'm not very good at action scenes. So if the idea ever takes form, it will take some time.


	6. Things Unseen

**A/N: **Psychic powers AU. It's a long one ;)

**Disclaimer: '**Sherlock' belongs to all the important people that you know. You recognize it, I don't own it.

**# #**

Sherlock trudged up the stairs to his flat on Montague street. It was quiet (not unusual for this hour of night), and the air in the building smelled of mould and grease. He caught himself thinking for the umptieth that moving elsewhere wouldn't be that bad. The key clicked softly in the lock, and the budding detective stepped inside his domain with a sigh, switching on the light while leaving the door softly close.

Then he froze in his tracks.

There was a woman (short blond hair, unevenly tanned skin, combat fatigues) examining the fungi growing in a petri dish on his desk. That, by itself, would have been surprising. What bothered him the most was that the woman was hovering in the air over the desk and that he could faintly see the wall through her semi-transparent form.

"Not again…" Sherlock moaned despite himself. The uninvited spectre looked up, focusing bright blue eyes at him with an unreadable expression. _If I pretend that I don't see her, she'd go away, right?_ Before he could put that strategy into action, the woman made a beeline towards him, landing solidly on her two feet inches from the perplexed detective. The involuntary step back made her grin. "You can see me!"

Annoyed at himself, Sherlock side-stepped her and went to the fridge without uttering a word. "You can hear me too, right? Please! I need help. I don't know who I am." She trailed behind him, pretending to walk (her kind could usually just float around, but the freshest apparitions preferred to imitate the habits of the living).

Impatiently huffing at the lack of edible elements, Sherlock slammed the fridge shut and turned to glower at the highly unnerving guest. "You are a ghost" he finally snapped at the spirit's pleading look. She muttered something along the lines of "Figured that much" but maintained an innocent face from behind the kitchen counter. "You have to move on. Follow the light, or whatever pulls you away." Having delivered this standard piece of advice, the detective turned towards the cupboards, in hopes to find something to eat there.

"Sounds dull." The voice sounded genuinely unconvinced. _That's new_. Sherlock stopped for a second, considering the pros and cons of getting involved in a conversation with a dead person. "And you have old biscuits in the left drawer."

Just to make a point, he checked the right drawer first. There was a couple of flies trapped inside that took flight as soon as their prison opened. Sighing, he reached towards the left drawer to fish out a package of tiny coffee biscuits. "What do you want from me?" he asked, still not looking at the smirking ghost.

"Well, I'm dead and amnesic. I was hoping you could help with the last part."

Sherlock ripped the package open and bit into the first biscuit. His stomach rumbled in discontent at the meagre diner. "Why should I?"

"I was told you like mysteries. Isn't it a good one? I don't remember anything before somehow appearing in London."

The detective sighed and meandered towards his sofa. "Who even told you about me?"

The woman shrugged and floated after him, too focused on the conversation to pretend to walk. "The homeless psychic kid that hangs around Mayfair. Works for you sometimes, he said." _Ah, Billy. I knew he saw them too._ "And a couple of very old guys in your neighbourhood. You seem to have made quite an impression on them." _The first owners of the nearby buildings, from the early 19__th__ century, that didn't move on for whatever reason._

"So, you want to know who you were."

"Yeah" she smiled down at him while hovering over the desk again.

"Would you move on after that?" This kind of transactions must always be discussed, unless one wants to get himself haunted for several months.

"Don't know. Suppose so."

Sherlock crunched down another biscuit. _That's not helpful. But damn it, I'm bored._ "You are originally from London and had served in the military. Career soldier, an officer. You were still in service at the time of your passing. The calluses on your hands indicate that you are proficient with both hands but are originally left-handed. No romantic relationship at the moment of your death. Possibly killed in action. That's all I can get with such limited information."

The woman stood on the ground again, staring wide-eyed at him. When he finished presenting his deductions, she slowly examined her hands, as if to confirm there were indeed callouses on them. "Army…" she breathed out, then frowned. Her hands flew up to her neck, and she seemed panicked for a second. "My tags. Where are my tags? Where…" She started to turn away and just vanished into thin air, leaving an irritated Sherlock behind.

"Spirits. Annoying buggers."

**# #**

Three days after the unexpected visit from the ghostly soldier, he came home to her transparent from lounging in his favourite chair, one arm hanging lazily over the armrest and the other dangling shiny metallic tags just in front of her face. "You again" he huffed. He really thought that she'd move on, the whole vanishing act had been quite convincing.

"Yeah" she chimed in softly. "Found the tags. JHW, it says."

Sherlock stopped briefly by the chair to check the inscription on the immaterial piece of metal. The soldier ID number had been scratched and unreadable. "Your initials" he stated offhandedly, before moving to check on his ongoing mould experiment by the window. "Jane Helen Warren, or something equally mundane."

"Jane?... Nay, I think I'm John" the ghost said, pulling the tags over her head. At Sherlock's questioning look, she elaborated: "John feels right."

"Fine… John" the detective drawled after a minute of stunned silence. "What do you want now?"

She grinned tiredly at him. "Being a ghost is kinda boring. Can I hang out with you, until I figure out where my grave is?"

"Rather than a grave, you should look for your unfinished business and stop bothering me" he grumbled.

"But I don't even remember my name!"

"Valid point. Nevertheless, I'd rather avoid unnecessary hauntings."

John chuckled mirthlessly. "I'm not haunting you. Just keeping company."

"What's the difference?" Before she could respond, Sherlock pressed on: "Either way, your continued presence increases the risk of me being interned for a psychotic break."

Her eyebrows flew up to the hairline. "You wouldn't be that coherent or calm if you were psychotic. And not sure whether I had been a sceptic before, but I sure as hell believe into psychics now."

"And what do you know about psychosis, Madam Ghost?" he snapped angrily, and went to curl on the sofa. She huffed in surprise at the reaction.

"Sorry?"

"Go away, why don't you" he snarled. There was a long silence (the problem with spirits is that they made no noise when they moved), until Sherlock sighed and turned to face the room, hoping against all odds that the woman listened and left.

John remained sprawled in his chair, eyeing him with a mix of amusement and worry. "Did you have problems with ghosts before?" she asked softly.

"I am not discussing any of my personal history with you!"

"Suit yourself" she abdicated too quickly for his satisfaction. He really wanted to vent at someone. John-the-non-confrontational-ghost stood up, rubbing her neck with the left hand. "I'll go bother your neighbours then." With that, she glided through the closest wall, to Sherlock's immense relief.

**# #**

"Damn, she is bitchy!" The heated comment startled Sherlock from his examination of an intriguing stain on the victim's cuff. Carefully pretending to observe his surroundings, he looked up to the frowning John. The soldier was busy glaring daggers at Donovan, who must have made another comment towards the consulting detective (he wasn't really listening at that point).

Lestrade chose that moment to notice his loss of focus. "What is it, Sherlock?"

"Just an annoyance" he replied tersely before turning his attention back to the corpse.

**# #**

"Is that a liver?" Sherlock almost dropped the scalpel.

"For God's sake, stop following me!" John blinked innocently at him, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"But I like it, being by your side." The sheer disgust at the possible romantic implications must have shown on his face, and she blushed in embarrassment. "Not like that! My thoughts are just clearer when you're nearby. So it's nice." _This, I can sympathize with_. _Still doesn't excuse the haunting._ Sherlock still scowled at her but didn't comment any further. "So… Is that a liver?"

"Yes" he huffed, if only to make her shut up.

"Was the previous owner alcoholic?"

Sherlock stopped the incision to observe the ghost with a newly found interest. "How do you know?"

"It is fatty. Plus, the discoloration is just wrong."

"Hmm. I haven't considered Braxton's drinking habits as contingent to his death." Liver forgotten, the detective leapt towards the desk to ruffle through police reports regarding the original crime scene. "That explains a lot, actually" he mumbled, picking a photo of the body. There was a soft chuckle behind him, but he ignored it while rushing out to the NSY.

**# #**

"I don't need your help, Mycroft." Sherlock spat before disconnecting the call. He really wanted to throw it at the wall, but his current funds would not allow the additional expense.

"You ok?" John called from the couch. She had become an almost permanent fixture in the small apartment, lounging around and providing somewhat relevant commentary on Sherlock's ongoing experiments and cases. She had been nagging about cleaning up too, until the detective pointed that it was his mess and that she was basically a free-loader. John pointedly stayed with the two Victorian gentlemen (they had been delighted) on the other side of the street for a couple of days after that one.

"My brother is being more annoying than usual" he replied to her question through his teeth.

"Might be because you're late on the rent."

"It is still none of his business."

"What happened between you two anyway?"

John appeared genuinely interested, and not in the mocking or morbidly fascinated way most of the people were interested in Sherlock. So he deigned to answer with a short version of the Holmes sibling relationship (_aka a study in resentment_): "Mycroft considers his opinion as the only valid one. He is a patronizing, over-bearing, overweight prat in a suit."

John winced at the description. "Sounds horrid. Was he always like that?"

"Yes. His 'expert' opinions had led to quite difficult situations during our childhoods." He genuinely tried to not feel too bitter about it. But Mycroft's insistence on informing their parents about everything, including ghost secrets the younger brother shared with his adored big brother, lead to a lot of agonizing hours with psychiatrists. It was an eye-opening period in his life. And it also added the constant threat of being permanently interned in a padded cell in case the all-seeing big brother noticed any signs of returning "hallucinations". Drugs actually helped with this part (cocaine was especially effective to block any spirit interference) but had a plethora of side-effects he wasn't willing to keep in the long run.

He must have closed his eyes in remembrance and was surprised to find John standing near him when he finally looked up again. She withdrew her hand that was half-way to his head, and started fidgeting with the hem of her cuffs, without moving away. "What are you doing?" he inquired with mild interest.

She rubbed her neck with her left hand, a gesture he knew to interpret as embarrassment with her. "Tried to pat your head, if you must know" she finally said, avoiding the now amused gaze.

"Why?"

"You looked lonely" she shrugged, effectively stunning Sherlock into silence.

Seeing his fish-out-of-the-water face, John blushed madly and vanished into thin air. "Hey!" the young man exclaimed, revolted that she'd leave without an explanation. "Come back!" He waited a couple of minutes before resigning himself to the (_for now_) unsolved mystery of the insightful ghost. "Damn it…"

**# #**

Neither of them noticed when John started hanging along on cases. She only talked when they were alone, to avoid distracting Sherlock from the work and making him look like a lunatic to the police ("Like you aren't one already" she had laughed but complied to the request). On rare occasions, she would quip some witty come-back to the most annoying specimen on the force, just for Sherlock's ears. That'd make him grin, which in turn had the bonus effect of scaring off the pests. More often than not, she would comment on the victim's state though.

They would also walk around the city in the post-case hype, Sherlock rambling about all the little details that lead to his conclusion, scaring witless the random passer-by's, and John eagerly listening with a bright grin. "You're amazing" she would say then and again. The first time, it made him freeze for a couple of minutes, trying to process the unexpected emotional input, and when he came to himself John was literally floating circles around him, trying to find out what was wrong.

One October night, Sherlock eagerly used her opinions to confirm his own theory (the woman had internal bleeding prior to the gaping knife wound on her throat). Leaving Lestrade scatter with his notes, the consulting detective marched towards the main road to catch a cab. John was walking (she preferred to avoid gliding away like some dramatic sceptre) alongside him. "You have medical training" he stated confidently.

Her gaze reflexively turned to her hands (calloused, the pattern is biased by the gun use in the military). "Medical, huh."

"Your knowledge is consistent with specialized medical education" he confirmed, tolerating the repetition just this time.

"I don't remember it" she frowned. The subject of John's identity was a touchy one. There wasn't much to go on, and it clearly bothered her. Sherlock found himself quietly thanking whatever death gods there are for allowing her existence. John was different from all the ghosts he'd encountered, stuck in their last struggle and a few vague memories, or forever bound to a specific place by inability to let go of a physical object. She was free of any attachment, had retained her mental faculties and personality. The only thing missing were her memories from before.

"It'll come to you" he tried to reassure his companion in a rare bout of sympathy.

She hummed, unconvinced but polite enough to not voice her doubts. Sherlock felt unexpectedly irritated by that. Deciding to stop dealing with the pesky sentiment, he picked up the pace. John seemed to match his speed unconsciously, sometimes floating to gain on his longer steps. _Experiment file J.12.01: correlation of speed to length of spirit capacities use. Chronometer engaged. Speedometer engaged. Immediate launch._

They walked in silence, with John distracted by unsuccessful attempts to remember anything at all, and Sherlock counting the seconds before she stopped mimicking the walk of the living. Suddenly, when he was almost sure he'd get to the expected result, John froze in place, suddenly very aware of their surroundings.

The detective had already advanced by three meters and had to turn back. "What is it?"

"Don't you hear it?" she asked, sharp gaze swiping the street. "Someone's screaming." Before he could respond that the street was incredibly quiet for a mid-day in central London, John literally flew off through the wall into the nearest café.

Listing under his breath all the reasons he had been staying clear of ghosts in the first place, Sherlock followed his undead companion at a more sedate pace. And through the door.

The door chimes jingled at his entrance, drawing a passing glance from an overworked waitress behind the counter. Sherlock noted in passing the woman was divorced, mother of three (_two boys at least, not enough data_) and starting to develop flu symptoms. His attention was quickly drawn to the semi-transparent form of the blond soldier, hunched over a booth.

He took a tentative step forward when she whipped around, with an expression more serious and intense than anything he had seen since their encounter. "Heart attack" she snapped. "Call an ambulance."

Keeping up appearances for those who didn't see the army doctor, Sherlock rushed to the booth to discover a middle-aged overweight man in a ratty suit, pale, breathless and almost unconscious. He was hidden from view of the counter and in no shape to call for help. "Call an ambulance!" Sherlock barked at the waitress who had followed him with a half-hearted 'welcome'. "The man is sick."

"They have a defibrillator" John commented, standing in the middle of the table (not on the table, she was standing just in front of the patient, ignoring physical obstacles). The detective dutifully relayed the message to the now panicked waitress. Someone ran from the back of the café to help, and Sherlock got pushed back by more competent people. He let them scurry in a frantic waltz, more interested in what John was doing than any of their surroundings.

The soldier hovered over the scene, making aborted gestures to rectify someone, opening and closing her mouth as if about to order the crowd before catching herself. Not before long, a misty silhouette started sipping out of the patient. He was going into cardiac arrest. John lurched towards it through several heads and circled it with evident concern. "Not your time" Sherlock could hear through the ambient noise. "Stay. You must stay."

Little by little, the silhouette shrank back into the body, just when the paramedics arrived. Looking exhausted but satisfied, John floated towards the exit, and the detective followed. They stood side by side on the sidewalk, breathing (or pretending to breathe) the chilly air. "You are a doctor" Sherlock finally said to the silence surrounding them. John looked up, surprised at the abrupt statement.

Then something seemed to click, and a soft smile lightened the tension wrinkles on her forehead. Then she vanished, leaving a very smug and slightly put-upon Sherlock behind.

**# #**

The landlord slammed the door into his face. _Well, that went well._ Sherlock almost jumped out of his skin when an amused voice echoed his thoughts. He should have gotten used to John creeping up on him, but she still managed to surprise him from time to time. Unfair advantage of being a silent and bodiless spirit non-withstanding.

"Piss off" he whispered to avoid offending some random neighbour. "The flat was getting too small anyway."

"You mean you have too much stuff in there and it's getting difficult to move around."

He didn't dignify that with an answer, choosing to stalk back to his soon-to-be-ex flat with head held high. John giggled in his wake.

**# #**

The moving in 221b had been delayed by a call from Lestrade. "We have a weird one" he said tiredly, and Sherlock swept through London to the crime scene. John had joined him in the cab, commenting on how his new flat looked very nice. "You went to visit too?" he whispered, not to spook the driver.

"Of course, I did" the woman grinned. "Just had to say goodbye to the old chaps at Montague street."

_Who?... Oh, the Victorian pair._ "They really should move on."

"They're having too much fun in the modern era, I think" John shrugged.

The conversation died down as they arrived at the scene. It was a good neighbourhood, with city houses lining the street on one side and a well-maintained park on the other. Most of the places had a tall fence, practically walls, around them.

"Freak" Donovan greeted him moodily at the gate of the red-brick two-stories building. ("It looks so cosy" - John commented quietly when they exited the car – "You wouldn't think there is a murder happening inside." Which, of course, was wrong and biased, crime disregarded completely social status and personal wealth. But Sherlock couldn't go off rambling about the statistics and their social applications in front of the whole Yard, so he bit his cheek and focused on the usual snipping contest with the sergeant.)

"Donovan. How are you?" Sally glared. Sherlock sniffed and strode up the short alley to the door. Sometimes politeness was the best weapon to cut short the grass under the idiots' feet. John was stifling chuckles behind his back. It felt right.

"… even here? It is a damn heart attack!" the whiny voice echoed down the stairs. Holmes winced. _Anderson. Damn it._

"You don't make the call, Philip" the DI snapped. Apparently, the argurment was going on for a while. "The man was being threatened, and now he's dead. Do your bloody job and let me ask the questions."

They entered the hallway on the second floor, where most of the forensics were assembled. Anderson was demonstratively fumbling with a light projector, while Lestrade seemed about to bang his head against the wall. Repeatedly. A well-dressed man in his forties was standing to the side, eyeing the scene with a hint of interest. "Do you really need me here, Inspector?"

Lestrade ran a hand through his hair before replying. "Yes, Mr Davis. I need you to point out if anything is out of place or missing in your brother's study."

"Of course, of course…" The man was guided away by an aide.

"What's this then?" Sherlock finally announced his presence, after having found nothing of interest in the hallway (aside from the alleged brother of the victim who already stepped out – honestly, the man couldn't look more satisfied about the situation).

"Sherlock" the DI seemed relieved. "I'd like your take on this one."

The dead man was in the first room to the right, the open window facing the park. The brick fence reached over the first floor and was barely visible. The body was laying face first on the ground, mouth agape. Unseen to the police, the ghostly form of the body's owner hovered over it with a confused expression. "What happened, what happened" he kept mumbling, annoying the hell out of Sherlock. John made a beeline to her fellow ghost and led him to a corner, whispering calming nothings, letting the consulting detective examine the scene in peace.

"I need everything you got" Lestrade reminded him needlessly. Sherlock ignored him in favour of checking the weather forecasts for last night.

_Fact:__ The window is open. __Fact:__ The weather was unusually warm last night. __Hypothesis A:__ The victim opened the window to enjoy the breeze._

_Fact:__ Indentation on the chair indicates it had been a favourite. __Fact:__ There are fresh scratch marks on the wooden floor. __Hypothesis B:__ The chair was originally facing the fireplace but was moved to face the window. __Fact:__ A fiction paperback novel had been dropped to the ground. __Hypothesis C:__ The victim was reading._

_General assumption 1.A:__ The victim settled for a quite night, opening the window due to a warm weather and reading a (good? irrelevant, delete) book._

_Estimating probability… 98% threshold reached. Assumption confirmed_

_Fact:__ The man had been threatened. Need more data._

"What about those threats?" he asked offhandedly, crouching over the body.

"Ah yes, he had been receiving emails, anonymous. We hadn't been able to track them."

"Useless" Sherlock huffed under his breath. "Show me."

The DI had been working with Sherlock for a long time, because he merely sighed and tossed a folder with printed emails towards him. The stuff was quite bland, which Holmes didn't miss the chance to point out, with a disgusted grimace. "Criminal class these days, honestly. 'Be warned'? Really? I've seen primary school kids write better threats."

"I'm sure you did…" the DI sighed. "What do you have, so far?"

"The victim was not overly concerned about the threats, I suppose it was the wife who handed them over to the police, right?" He didn't wait for the confirmation. "He possibly already suspected someone and didn't take it seriously. Because of this attitude, he failed to take basic precautions. I'm not certain about the modus operandi yet, let me check…" He bent over the corpse again.

There was a flash of light from the corner, distracting him from the examination. The ghost of the murder victim dissolved into a warm glow. _John really has a way with words, to persuade a violently killed man to move on so soon after death._ His personal ghostly soldier soon joined him in the examination, muttering about "poor sods" and "bloody unfair". Sherlock smirked.

John tensed, a finger tracing the small red dot on the body's throat. "Symptoms indicate heart attack, but…" She looked up with a raised eyebrow, interpreting his look of glee correctly. "It's curare, isn't it?"

"Must be" he nodded and turned towards Lestrade. "Poison. Check with forensics if they found a small dart. Make the pathologist do the blood work for curare or any variants."

"Curare?! This isn't a nineteenth century novel!"

"Your call" Sherlock huffed indignantly. _Now, where did the dart come from?_ He stepped towards the window, examining the ledge. John flew over his shoulder and jumped the several yards to the fence, landing lightly on it. _Bloody spirits…_ She crouched on the edge, turned towards the window and mimicked a gun with two fingers. The line of sight was directly in front of the chair. _Bingo._

Without a word, Sherlock rushed out of the room and to the street, followed by a slightly irate DI. "Sherlock, what in the…" He didn't listen.

The exact spot was easy to find – John was still perched on the fence, looking down with interest. There was little to no chances of having any evidence left on the concrete sidewalk, but it was worth trying.

_I am in luck_, the consulting detective grinned while picking flakes of green something with tweezers and placing them in an evidence bag. "I need to check those at Bart's. Might be nothing" he stated to fend off Lestrade's protests. Just in time, the not-so-bereaved Mr Davis walked out of the house. Sherlock made a beeline towards him. "Mr Davis, my condolences" he started with a false tremble to his voice. "It's such a tragedy." Lestrade sputtered behind him.

"Thank you" the man nodded in confusion. "Who are you?"

"It must be so terrible for you. Were you the one to find him?"

"No, but I came as soon as I could…" Davis gestured towards a dark SUV parked behind the police perimeter.

Sherlock nodded. "Again, I'm so sorry for your loss." And with that, he walked away, leaving Lestrade to explain what just happened to the victim's brother.

"What was that?" John asked, landing at his side and starting to walk along.

"Not now" he breathed out, brimming with anticipation.

While riding to St Bart's, he got a call from José, a cousin of a Mexican restaurant owner he had helped years ago. The kid was being accused of killing his business partner. So, he made a detour to check the scene (and scare away some constables), already compiling the experiment that would allow to clear José in this predicament.

The Mexican case took precedence over the interesting curare twist, so he headed to the morgue first. John had kept silent once they entered the hospital. She was frowning way too much. Had they had time, Sherlock would have explored this reaction, but two cases at once? Not a minute to spare.

Leaving the gullible Molly to monitor the bruises, he finally could test the suspicious flakes in the lab. As expected, it was metallic paint. _Bingo again._

Giddy with the discovery, he typed a text to Lestrade ("**If brother has green ladder, arrest brother. SH**") but his phone stubbornly refused to connect to any network. _This is ridiculous_, Sherlock grumbled, while roaming the corridors in search of a good Samaritan with a working phone. In the end, it was Molly who gave him her phone. Trying not to cringe at the flowery stickers, he sent his text and promptly inquired about the bruises. Then a fascinating case of situs invertus popped up and he stayed engrossed with the autopsy for a couple of hours to Dr Hooper's delight.

All in all, a very interesting day.

He didn't notice that John remained in the lab, looking at the walls with a look of blooming recognition.

**# #**

The next day was even better. Sherlock was finally called in for the serial suicides case (_what took them so long?_) and John was back to her supportive self, quipping "Amazing"s and "Impressive"s all over the place. Lestrade looked haggard but took what he could from the rapid explanation Holmes provided on the scene. The pink lady's ghost just hovered near the window, repeating "Rachel" and "Wrong choice". She didn't even listen to John, which was rare, and only stared in the distance. _Bloody unhelpful._

But the flow of observations was too breath-taking to let him remain annoyed for too long. _No case? How is it… Oh! OH! _"But what mistake?!" Lestrade yelled from upstairs.

"PINK!" was all he could manage, because if they were blind, it wasn't his fault.

John was laughing as they ran through nearby alleys in search of a good dump site.

**# #**

"Do you bring your dates here often?" John asked while Sherlock stared outside.

Angelo had made a small scene about him not bringing anyone 'this time'. "I don't do dates" he gritted between his teeth. "You should know, you hang around all the time."

"You should try" she pretended to nudge his leg with her feet. "I miss the touch sometimes."

Temporarily distracted from his stake-out, Sherlock turned a laser-like gaze towards her. "Really?" He personally found the physical contact somewhat annoying… most of the time.

"Yeah" she gave him a sad smile, which in turn made him frown for an unknown reason. "I don't think I remember it correctly at this point, but now it's just… cold." Sherlock already regretted asking. He didn't know what to say. _Sentiment. Damn it all to hell, why does __**this**__ make me feel angry? _Luckily John noticed his discomfort (_she always notices_) and waved a hand at him. "Don't fret. There's nothing anyone can do about that."

He hummed non-committedly to pass the unease. Then another question popped in his mind. "When you vanish, where do you go?"

"Vanish?" she looked confused now. _Doesn't she notice the time lapse? _"Is it when everything goes dark?" _Interesting. _He silently nodded. "Well, as I said, it just goes dark and soft. Maybe it's an equivalent of ghost sleep?"

"A hypothesis to explore" Sherlock mused out loud before a black cab caught his attention. "Look."

**# #**

The cab had been a wild goose chase after all. Sherlock was catching his breath, while John was grinning brightly by his side. She didn't have the breathing problem. Sherlock was starting to seriously consider turning himself into a ghost, if only to forgo the whole transport issues. But unless there was a 100% guarantee of retaining his faculties, he wouldn't risk it.

"Welcome to London" John chuckled.

"You have it too easy" he wheezed back.

"You better start running again, mate" she laughed in reply, nodding to the constable who was eyeing them suspiciously. Well, not them, just Sherlock. He ran all the same.

**# #**

John liked haunting Sherlock. The man was amazing. Breath-taking. If only she could breathe.

Her memories as a ghost remained very clear, but only vague feelings about her original life remained. She recognized some names ("John" had a familiar tug of a nickname, "Harry" made her feel fondness and disappointment at the same time, and "Bill" made her smile and worry), knew the directions to some places and knew how to perform emergency medical procedures. She was a functioning person with medical training… only dead. Unable to touch. Able to go through walls. The pros and cons of her situation were debatable.

She constantly felt like there was something important just at the edge of her consciousness, but it always slipped away. There was a flash of memories at St Bart's hospital, the walls, the colours, she was certain to know them. Physically know how they felt, how they smelled. But it remained just that, a flash. Nothing more came of it.

Being near Sherlock, the mad genius, the socially inept and secretly kind detective, was like being stuck in the eye of a cyclone. Calm, yet in the middle of a raging tempest. It kept her away from feeling the cold. It made her less confused. She liked to think that Sherlock was a beacon of light that dispelled the greyness of her death.

She wasn't sure if it was because of them spending months together, or because of who/what she had been in the past, but John wanted to protect Sherlock.

She really wanted to yell at the assembled officers in the Baker Street flat, all proud of themselves for a volunteer drug bust. _How dare they?! They know nothing about his reasons! _She wanted to chew them out, make them scram away, but was reduced to the mental support role to Sherlock's brilliance.

"I don't even smoke" the madman in question growled at the DI, showing off his set of nicotine patches.

"Neither do I" Lestrade conceded, showing his own patch. That seemed to resolve their argument (John didn't quite follow this part, too busy glaring at Donovan… again). "We've found Rachel."

"Who is she?" Sherlock demanded.

"Jennifer Wilson's only daughter."

That seemed to confuse the consulting detective. "Her daughter? Why would she write her daughter's name? Why?" He seemed to look around the room as if in search of an answer from above, but he was actually looking straight at John.

"Maybe she didn't want to leave her behind or wanted to see her one last time" John suggested over Anderson's snide comments. Sherlock gave her barely a blink of acknowledgement, before ripping into the forensics expert. Then Lestrade announced that Rachel was dead.

"Excellent!"

Only John knew that Sherlock was actually thinking of tracking down Rachel's spirit. "She'd be in Cardiff, remember?"

The conversation moved on, the living audience being all but helpful. "She scratched her name on the floor with her fingernails. She was dying. It took effort. It would have hurt." Sherlock's voice became insisting, driving the police into silent consideration.

"So it wasn't just regret, it was important, so important she refused to die till it was done" John offered from her corner. Sherlock nodded, pretending to stare at Lestrade.

"If you were dying… if you'd been murdered: in your very last few seconds what would you say?"

The DI shifted uneasily under the scrutiny, speechless, but words came to John like old friends. "Please, God, let me live."

There was a moment frozen in time, where Sherlock turned around to stare at her with horror written clear as day on his face. She blinked, only then realizing what she had done. Admitted to being killed. _How? I don't remember. I just feel. Damn it, I want to know!_ Seeing Holmes' stricken look, she smiled and waved a hand. They could discuss the revelation later.

Fortunately, the mystery of Rachel was too enticing to forgo, and Sherlock went back to berating the Yarders. John listened to the rest of the drama without intervening, still reeling from actually remembering something, even if it was only her dying words.

_I am a soldier. Was I killed in action? Then what am I doing in London? Not complaining, but…_ Her musings were cut short by the computer finally locating the phone in the flat, and the chaos that erupted.

While everyone was busy looking for the device, John was the only one watching Sherlock, who went into thinking overdrive. Then he pulled out his own phone.

To John's disbelief, bluish characters (_hieroglyphs? runes?_) slowly detached themselves from the screen and made a beeline towards the unsuspecting Sherlock. "Sherlock!" she called out in warning, as he didn't seem to notice anything amiss, but it was too late.

The runes embedded themselves into the detective's skin, and she could see the glow on his forehead. Forgetting to walk, John flew to his side. "Sherlock, you alright?" But he didn't even seem to notice her face inches away from his own. _No._

Slowly, Holmes moved out of the flat, leaving the bustling search without supervision. _No, impossible._ John rushed to the stairs, planting herself firmly in Sherlock's way. "What are you doing?" she demanded. He didn't stop, just went through her. _He doesn't…_ "You don't see me" she whispered, frozen in place. "No, NO, DAMMIT!" _What is this blue shit? A spell, a curse? If ghosts exist, why not curses, right?_ "Sherlock!"

She flew outside, only to find Sherlock exchanging pleasantries with a cabbie. "It was **you**, not your passenger." Correction, a serial killer. But what worried her more was the bluish runes on the cabbie's hands.

"You!" she screamed like a banshee, getting into the killer's personal space. "You did this to him!" He didn't see her either. _How can he… Not important._ She turned back to Sherlock, feeling more helpless than ever. "Sherlock, please! Something's wrong! Sherlock!"

"I don't wanna kill you, Mister Holmes. I'm gonna talk to yer… and then you're gonna kill yourself."

_No! Stop!_ "Why don't yOU HEAR ME?!"

He really stopped noticing her existence. _Am I dead?_ John's mind wondered hysterically. She couldn't leave him alone with a serial killer. Not with this… curse… on his skin. So she got into the cab with them, desperately trying to make Sherlock **see **again, in vain. They talked and measured each other, but neither man heard her.

"Don't need this, 'cause you'll follow me." John seethed from that comment. _Wait. How is he so sure? Does this spell enforce compliance? Or cloud his perceptions? Generally do something to his will? _She floated in front of Sherlock, trying to get a good look on the symbol etched on his forehead, invisible to anyone but her. It was complex, with elegant lines intertwining inside a perfect circle. It reminded her of Celtic knots, adorned with smallish pentagrams. She tried to trace it with her fingers, but it did nothing. _Blocking his psychic sight might be a side-effect. Now… how to get rid of it?_

They were in a classroom now. The cabbie, Jeff Hope, was setting up his game. "You bastard" John hissed at him, circling around the sitting pair, looking for something, anything. She watched in morbid fascination the killer lay out his rules and Sherlock play along. She felt the deadly cold trapped in two bottles. _Both are poison. _She felt hopeful when Sherlock smiled at the toy gun and got up to leave.

Then the runes flared to life. "Just before you go, did you figure it out? Which one's the good bottle?"

"NO!" John screamed as Sherlock turned around, blue symbols shining on his forehead, forcing him to get trapped.

"Of course. Child's play."

"Well, which one then?" the killer pressed.

"No, stop! SHERLOCK!"

"Which one would you 'ave picked, just so I know whether I could have beaten you?" The voice was enticing, like a slow-acting poison sipping through blood, making the rune shine brighter and brighter.

_He's going to kill him_, John realized in an instant of clarity. "STOP!" she yelled, trying to kick the pill out of Sherlock's hands, but she just went through the bottle and the hand holding it.

The cabbie was smug, taunting. "You" she growled, moving to tackle the bastard, failing again. An anger she did not experience ever before started to rise in her guts. _Sherlock cannot die. My only friend, I will **not** let him die. _The eternal cold of death was melting away in the fury. _This man. This soul shall burn._

Acting on instinct, John thrust her open hand though Jeff Hope's back and into his heart, and squeezed.

The hypnotic monologue broke off, and the man's body collapsed, leaving his spirit in the palm of John's hand. Still alight with fury, she hissed "burn" and the new ghost screamed as disembodied flames consumed him until only translucent ash scattered to the winds.

The bluish runes on Sherlock's skin flashed with a final jolt and dissolved.

**# #**

As Jeff Hope collapsed, Sherlock came back to reality, the adrenaline from the life and death situation still pumping strong in his veins. _What a bad timing_, was his first thought. Then John's form slowly came into focus. _Wait. John. Why didn't I see or hear her before?_

She was breathing heavily with fading anger (_can't be - she can't breathe_), an arm outstretched forward. A clenched fist where the cabbie's heart would have been. _Impossible._

"John?" he tried gently.

She looked up at him, a look of immense relief quickly replaced with a frown. Something was wrong. Her gaze unfocused. _She is remembering something._

Suddenly, her appearance, which remained unchanged since their first meeting (_ghosts never change_), altered. Her uniform became dirty and ripped, splattered with dried and fresh blood alike. Hair mated. Dirt under fingernails, dark smudges on her face. A gunshot wound in her left shoulder. _That's how she died._

John's lost expression twisted in pain, as she tried to reach out to him, only to fail and fall down, vanishing from view before hitting the ground.

"JOHN!"

**# #**

Sherlock went over the events of that night again and again for a week, to the point where even bloody Mycroft started to worry. Everyone thought that an aneurysm killed Hope, and with that, the case was closed. But there were inconsistencies, that no one could comprehend.

According to his recollections, he suddenly stopped perceiving John's presence when he read the "Come with me" text. _Why? She didn't vanish. She had no reason to. Something happened to block my sight._ _What? What could have possibly happened?_

Setting aside the unanswered question, there was the matter of the cabbie's demise. He collapsed at the crucial moment, just seconds before they both took the medicine. Forensics confirmed that both pills were poisoned. And Sherlock should have known better, but then… _Why didn't I? I am arguably smarter than this. The risk… is always welcome, but I do not intend to die. It was unnecessary. Why did I go along with it?_

Somehow, it was related to his inability to see John.

His stomach grumbled. Time to eat some biscuits then. While chewing at the required substance, Sherlock remembered that there was someone who could possibly help him out. _Billy. The beggar from Mayfair._

The same night, Sherlock disappeared into the shadows, giving slip to the tail his brother set up. Billy was in his usual spot, wrapped into two ratty jackets and a tuft of red hair peaking under a beanie. "Any change?" he asked hopefully when Sherlock stopped in front of him.

"Why don't we grab a bite?" the detective suggested.

Billy raised an eyebrow, but happily complied. They grabbed a fish and chips at the nearest food truck and sat at one of their plastic tables to eat. After munching in silence for a while, Billy asked between bites: "So, what can I help ya with, Shezza?"

"I gotta know 'bout a girl" he replied in kind. Then added: "A soldier."

Billy gave him a sharp glare, pushing the chips away. "Don't know what yer mean."

"A blond soldier. Didn't remember anything about herself. You told her to go to me, months ago." The beggar continued to stare, unimpressed. "She is unusual. Kept her personality. She stayed with me until a week ago, when something happened. I need to know what."

"If this is a joke…"

"It isn't!" He must have come out as desperate, because Billy's glare softened. "I **need** to know what happened to her."

Billy pulled the chips back towards him and sighed. "You see them, right?" Sherlock nodded. "But you never read anything about it, or got a teacher?" _There are teachers?_ Instead of floundering his ignorance, Holmes just shook his head. "Rightie. That actually explains things." He chomped down another chips. "Just so yer know, I'm a bit different from you. I see only the strong ones. But I can break some minor curses. My bloodline is too weak to do anything more than that."

He couldn't contain himself. "Bloodline? **Curses**?"

"You really are clueless, aren't ya? Alright, listen up, pal." Billy's voice quieted down, and he looked like he recited a lesson. "These powers are part of our genetic make-up. Powerful bloodlines were preserved in the past, but it was lost over time. Sometimes it will manifest strongly in a descendant, sometimes only a shadow of the ancestor's power remains. Some are born with the abilities, for others, it needs to be triggered, awaken. The power gives the possibility to see and interact with the spiritual world, basically the souls of the dead. There are some specifics you don't need to know yet. But some of yer ancestors must've been quite strong, for you too see even the fading ghosts. What, don't think I didn't notice how you looked at Old Robbie when he passed. Yer **saw** him leave. I didn't. You're stronger than me, at least."

Sherlock mentally noted to start researching his genealogy. "You said curses."

"Yeah" Billy smirked. "Curses and blessings. Some of these special bloodlines can manipulate some part of their own or others' souls to impact the world of the living. It can be a minor thing, like ensuring a safe trip, or it can be a death curse."

_Oh, the possibilities. _"How rare is it?"

"Interested, huh? Very rare. As I said, very few strong practitioners remain."

_Damn. _"What about John?"

"John? Is that the girl's name?"

"That's what she wanted to be called" Sherlock huffed defensively.

"Huh. 'Kay. Well, she was clearly from a bloodline, but have not awakened before passing into a spirit form. You said she disappeared, did she pass on?"

"No… She took on the appearance just before her death, fell and vanished."

Billy blinked in surprise, a half-eaten chip hanging from his open mouth. "Ghosts don't change" he finally sputtered.

"She did. And it was just after something blocked my ability to see her for an hour or so."

"Your ability got blocked?! Man, say something first!" The beggar grabbed his hand and ran a finger over his open palm. "Yer been under a curse recently. A rather strong one, I couldn't 'ave touched it. But it wasn't about making you 'not see', that's sure. Can't read more."

"You're a palm-reader now?" Sherlock asked, pulling his hand back with a grimace.

"That's the easiest way to read a curse" the redhead shrugged. "Do you think she might have broken it?"

"Maybe" he admitted.

"Then I got good news for yer, Shezza. John's a soul witch."

"A **what**?!"

"Special blood. Soul witches can interact with all souls, dead or alive. They also can leave their bodies behind for extended periods of time, without actually dying."

Sherlock's brain screeched to a halt. "She's alive?"

"Her body is. Must be, if her appearance changed. If she wasn't aware of her heritage when the blood was triggered, she might have whole-heartedly believed to be dead. Which can explain the memory loss."

"Alive" Sherlock repeated in stupor.

**# #**

The Chinese smuggling ring case had been a welcome distraction from his unsuccessful attempts to locate John. All he had was "JHW" and an approximate date of her shooting. He didn't know which corps she had been enrolled with, or her last name, or age. It was bound to fail.

Sherlock felt bad about Soo-Lin's death, but it ended up being the key to the case as her ghost silently pointed to the London A-Z before dissolving into the light. The cipher was ridiculously easy to crack after that, and even the newbie DI could plan a raid.

He came home to an empty flat, his usual mess not even bringing an ounce of joy.

"Sherlock?"

The detective swirled around, almost losing his footing. There, in the kitchen doorway, stood John. Still translucent.

"John…" he breathed out, unable to say more. She looked different. Her hair grew longer, down to her waist, which shouldn't be possible for a ghost. Her uniform gave way to a simple long white shirt (_hospital gown_). She looked pale, dark smudges lining under her tired eyes. _It is proof that she is alive._

"Wh… I… think I need help" she stumbled upon her words, as if it was difficult to articulate.

Galvanized into action, Sherlock stepped closer. "What do you need?"

"It's dark…" she started, then closed her eyes in pain. "It burns."

"Burns?" He could see a sheen of sweat gathering on her brow. "Do you have a fever?"

"Don't know… They don't let me wake up!"

"Who?"

"It burns, Sherlock…" She was swaying on her feet now, looking miserable. "Please, get me out, please…"

"I need more data, John!" That was true. He had nothing to go on. She looked up, eyes clouded by pain. He felt like someone shoved broken glass inside his lungs. "Please, give me a hint."

"They won't… let me remember…" she struggled to make full sentences. "My soul is tied down… It burns so bad!"

"John, look at me! You have to give me something."

She stared at him vacantly, before a spark of the familiar stubborn strength flashed on her face. "J.H. Watson, RAMC."

_Her name. Finally. _"Good, that's good, John. I will find you."

She nodded, a ghost of a smile making a guest appearance. Then her eyes unfocused. "Have to go" John whispered and vanished again.

**# #**

Captain Joan H. Watson, RAMC. He finally had a name and her military records. Enrolled at 18, the army financed her degree. Experienced trauma surgeon. George's cross. Had been shot in an ambush outside of Kandahar during her third tour in Afghanistan. Extensive damage to left shoulder. Partial loss of mobility. Honourably discharged. Serious post-surgery infection. Transported to London. Fell into coma.

The last part had been edited, but he managed to wriggle around the restrictions with Mycroft's passwords. Captain Watson, still unconscious, had disappeared from the hospital two months ago.

_Abduction. But why? And by who?_

**# #**

Moriarty exploded into his life with promises of entertainment and challenge. Carl Powers' shoes were just an amuse-bouche, and the following cases ranged in intensity and flavours. Moriarty was a true chef of crime. Sherlock was enjoying the thrill more than on any other case, leaving gaping Yarders and a pestering brother in his wake.

He still had Billy on the lookout for any sign of John or any suspicious activity in the secretive community of London's psychics. For a good price, the crafty man revealed himself a gold mine of information Sherlock previously never had access to. Apparently, Billy's grandparents were keener on passing on obscure knowledge than Sherlock's own (if they had even been aware of it). The nuances in bloodlines and the correlation to genetics were simply fascinating. With this new insight, Sherlock was almost certain that Moriarty had ties to the paranormal. When Billy hinted that an honest-to-god necromancer had been terrorizing the underworld for some years now, his suspicions grew stronger.

But then… these cases. These cases. Elegant! The game (_chess, tag, hide-and-seek_) was finally at the level he could whole-heartedly enjoy. It was an invitation. And if not for John's influence, Sherlock would have taken it up by pure curiosity.

**# #**

All things come to an end. The fifth pip was making itself wait, so Sherlock did the next logical thing. He set up a date, hoping that Mycroft stopped monitoring him for the night after being handed over the originals of the missing plans.

He arrived at the pool with two minutes to spare. Hang his coat in the entrance. Strode confidently towards the main area.

"Stop!"

John materialized in his path, arms outstretched to block his way. She looked haggard, dressed in a long white hospital gown again, pale, thinner than before. There were bruises on her wrists and bare ankles. Sherlock froze in surprise. "Get away, Sherlock, now!"

_The fifth pip._ "John…"

"Sherlock, don't be an idiot, please, run!" She sounded desperate. _She's been the final bait all along. _The realization that Moriarty, his masterful opponent with complete disregard for human life, had John for several months made his blood run cold. She hadn't been treated gently, that much was clear the time she showed up in fever at his flat, but it was much more striking now.

Before Sherlock could say anything, the soldier cried out in pain and was pulled backwards through the door, jerked away by an unseen force. The detective followed slowly, dreading what he'd find on the other side.

All prepared speeches vanished when the lights blinked to life in the chlorine-permeated space.

The pool itself was expectedly dull. Standard. The quiet murmur of water was adding a surreal sense of tranquillity to the scene. Mid-way from the main door to the deep-end someone placed a black office chair, just in front of an open changing cubicle.

A body was sprawled on the chair (_white gown, blond hair_). Sherlock took a tentative step forward, his shoes resonating loudly in the otherwise empty space (_skin abnormally pale from the lack of sun light and fever_). The body was not completely immobile (_breathing_). He had walked half the distance when his mind, slowed down by the thrice damned sentiment, caught up to reality (_John, John is breathing_) and he froze for a second, unable to breathe himself.

Blue eyes, clouded in pain, focused on him with effort. "Run…" her weak plea echoed between them. There were lines everywhere on her skin that hadn't appeared on her spirit form. The intricate pattern ran all over the bare skin of her arms, legs, neck and face, and seemed to continue under the tattered clothes, like a full-body tattoo. It was pulsing with a sickening bluish light. _A curse, _Sherlock realized, _a very complex one._ "Sherlock, run…" John repeated, which was non-sense, he wasn't going to just leave her there.

"No" he mouthed to her while screening the pool for potential threats (_they were here, the question was 'where exactly'_), and stepped forward. The red light danced in the corner of his vision and he looked back at John, frozen in place again by the sight of red dots dancing all over the white gown. _NO!_

"Bet you never saw this coming, Sherlock" a male voice came out distorted through hidden speakers. "What would you like to do next?" Sherlock glared around in silence. The voice continued dispassionately. "Nice touch, this: the pool where little Carl died. I stopped him. My very first one. Was it a first for you? I can stop Johnny too, just say the word."

Anger reared its ugly head, making him lose all rational thought for a moment. "Where ARE you?" _Show yourself, so I can kill you for what you did._

Footsteps echoed from the cubicles, coming closer. John whimpered quietly at the sound. "I gave you my number" drawled in a pronounced Irish lull the man who appeared just behind the chair. "Thought you might call." The face seemed vaguely familiar. "Did I really make such a fleeting impression?" The man made a supposedly funny thinking face. "But then, I suppose, it was rather the point." He circled the chair from behind and leaned an elbow on its top. "Jim Moriarty. Hi!"

"Pleasure" Sherlock offered with fake politeness.

"Did you enjoy the game? Or were you too worried about your cute little ghost here?" Jim tangled two fingers in John's dishevelled hair and tugged playfully. She winced but made a stoic face. Sherlock kept on a stonewall mask, boiling inside (_note to self__: break Jim's hand_).

"It was entertaining."

"I've given you a glimpse, Sherlock, just a teensy glimpse of what I've got going on out there in the big bad world. I'm a specialist, you see, just like you!" His smile stretched too wide and showed too much teeth to be considered pleasant.

"Consulting criminal" Sherlock stated his conclusion, fists clenched at his side. "Brilliant" he allowed himself to say, because it was, really. "But that's not all you are, right?"

"Yessss" Jim hissed with glee. "I have power at my disposal that no one can match. No one will ever get to me."

"I did."

"You've come the closest, I admit. But you can't beat me, Sherlock. Not on our **special** playground. You know that" Moriarty gently chided him (_true, damn it, I can do shite against his curses_). The criminal mastermind tugged at John's hair again, making her head turn towards him. She looked in pain but still found the force to glare at her captor.

"Why her?" Sherlock heard himself ask.

Moriarty chuckled, black eyes glued to John's face. "Do you want to know what I did to her? All the dirty little details?" He turned his mocking gaze towards Sherlock, still tying knots of blond hair with one hand.

Swallowing back the anger and avoiding looking at John, the detective elaborated. "I am more interested in the specifics of this curse you use."

"Oooh, so cold!" Jim laughed. "Are you hurt, Johnny?"

"Go to hell" she hissed in reply. A dark shadow came upon the gleeful face, and he violently shoved John's head down.

"Bad girl" he said under the breath, before addressing Sherlock again. "You see, Sherlock darling, Johnny here would have been perfectly alright if she just followed the curse's conditions." Finding himself unable to speak up without screaming in rage, Sherlock simply quirked an eyebrow. Jim happily obliged (_he is a chatterbox, isn't he?_): "Which are quite easy, really. Just obey my will. Otherwise…" he smirked and pressed a finger on John's shoulder.

"Agh!" Something akin to an electroshock seemed to run through the soldier's body. She tensed, straight as a ramrod, eyes tightly shut in pain, nails digging into the chair's holster, but not crying out. It stopped as fast as it came, and John slumped back, breathing heavily.

His hands hurt – he had drawn blood by clenching his fists too tightly. Jim was admiring his handywork with a grin. "She's a stubborn one. You gotta like that in a pet, don't you think?"

"Can't say I agree" Sherlock grinded through his teeth. _Stay calm. Observe. Analyse. There __**must **__be a way. There __**must **__be something._

"Kill-joy" Jim pouted, standing straight and taking a step towards Sherlock. "You are valuable though. So, I will give you a choice."

"A choice?" Sounded like a trap.

"You know, Sherlock, at first, I just wanted **you**. This was supposed to be our first date, and all!" _What in the nine circles of hell…_ "But one day, I saw you hanging with this ghost and did my research. The girl is a rare find and would compliment my collection quite nicely. So would you. But I just can't have you both in the same world." Moriarty looked vaguely annoyed at that statement but cheered up the next second. "Now. You choose. Who will stay with me?"

"What happens to the other one?"

"As I said… I can't have you both in the living world. Pity, really. It would have been fun."

_Be killed or watch John be killed._ _What sort of a deal is that?_ Sherlock was getting desperate. There were several snipers in the gallery. Jim Moriarty was an unknown entity, he had no idea how fast a curse could be cast, nor what other tricks the madman had in his bag. He could only stall in hopes Mycroft showed up in time, for once.

"Sherlock…" John called out weakly. She looked worse than before. "Don't…"

"Shush, you" Jim waved an accusatory finger at her. "He has to choose."

_No. No, it can't be it. I'm not losing her again, not to death, and certainly not to this psychopath. _His emotions were starting to overflow, cluttering the mind palace, making any logical reasoning flawed. _No, no, no… _Jim looked more and more amused by the second. _He's trying to break me. I refuse…!_

He chanced a glance around the pool again, searching for something, anything that would help them in this situation. His eyes landed on John, who stared straight back at him with a determined expression. _What is she d…_

John took a deep breath and with an unexpected bout of strength forced herself up from the boneless sprawl to a sitting position. Immediately, the shock cut through. She remained still and quiet for the whole ten seconds, biting back the screams, both men too stunned to do anything to stop her. _No_, was the only word running through Sherlock's mind during all that time. _Nonononononononononono…_

An invisible string snapped, and the soldier's body fell back lifeless, a trickle of blood running from her nose. It looked like she was smiling. The bluish lines flared with intense light and dissolved into nothing.

"John…" He couldn't stop staring at the dead body. _She was alive just now. She had been alive._

"Oh my" Jim sounded genuinely surprised. "That's cheating."

"Can't tie me to a beating heart anymore, necromancer" said a cold voice at Sherlock's left, making them startle. John's spirit form looked healthier than her now abandoned body. She looked like a soldier again, short hair, pristine uniform, reliable and confident.

"John…" Sherlock managed to whisper. "What have you done?"

Her gaze softened when she finally looked him in the eyes. Jim was the one to answer the question, however: "She disobeyed to the point of death." He was positively furious now. "But what now, huh, Johnny?" he hissed, and the red dots rushed from John's still form to Sherlock, like a swarm of demented bees.

For a moment, she looked panicked. Then a determined frown settled in. John glared sideways at Moriarty, clearly trying to convey the disgust he inspired her. "Ah yes. Your rotten dolls." Sherlock remained as still as he could, but his thoughts kicked into gear. _Fact:__ Necromancer. __Fact:__ Dolls. __Fact:__ Moriarty is a strong psychic user. __Conclusion:__ The snipers are undead corpses. __Fact:__ John is dead. (Fatal failure detected, please reboot…)__ Fact:__ John can manipulate souls. __Hypothesis:__ John might know how to deal with Moriarty. _"Who do you think I am, Jimmy?" she drawled. _Hypothesis confirmed._

With one leap, the ghostly soldier jumped to the centre of the pool, floating over the water. Raising her hands above her head as if trying to reach the moon, her voice rang firm through the empty space, splitting the air like a bullet. "Come!" Jim paled, visibly unsettled for the first time this evening. Suddenly, a dozen of translucent silhouettes detached themselves from all sides of the gallery to the sound of muted thumps and floated towards the lone figure of John. _Soul witch. Manipulator of souls…_

When they were all gathered, circling around her in a semblance of a tribal dance, John brought her hands down and extended them forward in an offering gesture. "Go." This was not an order. An encouragement, a guidance. The dancing souls stopped for a split second and the next moment they were dissolving into light, so bright it blinded the only two living persons in the room. _She asked them to move on._ When Sherlock's eyes adapted again, he was struck by the image in front of him. John was surrounding by specks of light, like fireflies, watching them wither away to the very last one. When her eyes turned back to them, they were frighteningly cold. "What now, Jimmy?"

Jim gaped like a fish out of water, murderous rage rising slowly but surely on his face. John didn't lose time to come back to Sherlock's side, a bodiless hand brushing against his shoulder in support but leaving no warmth. "Why not tell us the reason why you wanted to erase one of us?" she addressed the fuming consulting criminal. "Isn't it because you couldn't possibly win against both?" _Sound hypothesis. But I am not a match to the curses. How…?_

Moriarty's face twisted in an ugly snarl. "Let's test it out then."

**# #**

_What does it say if I feel better in spirit form than in my physical body?_ Joan mused just after having sent the enslaved souls to the next great adventure. _Well, the last several months did not help with the whole 'love your body' thing…_

She watched Moriarty seethe, feeling smug about finally breaking out of his hold. The only relatively good thing she could get from the whole abduction and torture ordeal was information about paranormal powers. Jim was surprisingly talkative when trying to break people. She admitted that he was strong, terrifyingly so. But apparently, her powers could match his (_how is it even possible, I haven't seen a ghost in over three decades, most of which I've spent as an army medic_) and more importantly, so could Sherlock's if he ever awakened. Jim kept calling him a dormant exorcist. And exorcists were natural curse-breakers.

But triggering an awakening could be very traumatic. It took a bullet for Joan. She wasn't ready to risk Sherlock's life for a hypothetic chance of unleashing an unidentified superpower.

And Jim was a dangerous psycho, but still a true master of curses. Even if his repertoire was limited to submission and pain-infliction incantations, Moriarty had an imaginative range of uses for even the basic things. He was also very proficient at casting them at a moment notice.

They were in a bind, even if she tried to not show it. _I can always try the "burn" thing I did with the cabbie… if I get angry enough._

"Let's test it out then" Jim growled, looking more like a ghoul than a man now. _Damn! _The necromancer stomped his foot, and bluish runes sparked into life on the ground. _He had prepared traps! _Joan jumped back in panic, but Sherlock was not that fast to react, or maybe he still couldn't **see** the curses, she didn't know.

The runes flared all around him and the sickeningly cold light latched onto him, making the detective cry out in surprise. "Sherlock!" The light solidified into ethereal ropes that weaved themselves around the tall man as snakes, pulling him to his knees, all the while literally pulsing with coldness. The overall feeling of wrongness made Joan's stomach lurch, despite being in spirit form.

"He can't break out!" Jim laughed in a good imitation of a Bond-movie villain. "Things I could make you do now, Sherlock darling!"

_No effing way! He is too important!_ Disregarding the gut-wrenching disgust she felt at the proximity of the curse, Joan fell to her knees in front of Sherlock, hands raised to keep him from looking away. _Too important to be controlled by anyone. _For the first time ever (_maybe because of the curse that brings him closer to death, maybe because I am stronger and can get closer to life_), her disembodied fingers made actual contact. She could feel his clammy skin under her palms and judging by the startled expression on the pale face he could feel the touch. _Food for thought later. _"Don't you dare give up" she said calmly, looking straight into his silver eyes. "Fight it. Please."

"How…?" he managed through his teeth, already resisting the pull of the ropes that teared mercilessly into his body, cutting blood circulation and restricting the breathing.

_How indeed?_ The soldier hadn't thought that far, acted on impulse. She tightened her grip on him, trying at least to keep them both grounded in the physical world. "Working on it" she offered with a self-depreciating smile and immediately switched focus to the cursed ropes that started to latch onto her spirit form now. "Shit."

Moriarty piped in from his prime spot by the chair. "Pity that, Johnny. If you hadn't killed your physical body, I could have kept **you **instead." Sherlock made a distressed sound, making Joan wince. _I am dead indeed._

"Don't listen to that jerk." The rope tightened around her waist, making her double down in pain, now clutching on Sherlock's shoulders. _Think, Watson, think!_

"John..!" There was a jolt of **something **under her hands, not electric and cutting, rather warm and calming. _Exorcist blood, it can break curses, it can break Jim. _Warm hands were tugging at the ropes that restrained her, Sherlock was trying to physically disrupt the spell-trap. His eyes were starting to glow. _He is awakening._ But it would not be enough against an experienced necromancer.

New knowledge seemed to flow into her mind, not quite exact data, not like a book you'd read and remember, but instinctual, primal feelings, a certainty that must have come down from generations of powerful individuals. Protectors. _I am the doctor of souls_, Joan thought with instant clarity. _I can guide and strengthen and condemn. I use my own soul to make those of others __**stronger**__. _The answer had been simple after all. They needed both their powers to defeat Jim. She already gave up her own life to help Sherlock, giving him her soul wasn't that big of a deal. Somehow, Joan knew exactly what to do.

One hand on his heart, the other cupping his cheek, Joan forced herself up to press their foreheads together. "Wh…" Sherlock started, but she interrupted firmly. "I'll give you my soul. Take it all and give him hell."

A warmth enveloped them both, growing around them like a bubble, pushing the cursed ropes back. Moriarty shrieked in rage, spitting incantations like insults, but nothing could interrupt the soul-gifting ritual. The feeling of wrongness faded away, and Joan smiled with her eyes closed. She had never felt so safe before. There was a bond forming between her and the detective, and she wasn't quite sure whether everything had gone as intended, but… but she could **feel **small bits of herself running through Sherlock's veins, amplifying the power of his blood. She was both part of him and still her own person.

Strong arms pulled her to her feet and pushed her slightly behind his surprisingly large back. Sherlock's expression was one of unforgiving rage. His eyes were glowing with a grey light, that appeared warm and homely to Joan, in contrast to Jim's harsh neon blue.

"Enough" he practically growled and stomped his right foot straight into the knot of the curse. There was a sound of breaking glass and the whole spell-trap failed in a spectacular fashion, flashing lights and explosion noises filling the pool to the brim. The back-lash hit Moriarty before he could dodge it. With a grunt, the madman fell back, the front of his suit ruined by his own trap.

The counter-attack, fuelled by the anger and the sudden awakening, left Sherlock exhausted and he crumbled to his knees again. Joan immediately went to help him when she noticed the glow of a soul leaving its physical body.

_Moriarty._

In an instant, she was standing over the burnt body of the criminal mastermind. _Not dead yet, but dying, _she assessed coldly. _Good._ Jim's soul looked different from the ones she'd seen so far. Small spikes of energy, of the familiar neon blue tainted with pitch black, pierced through its flesh (or ghost matter, definitions started to get muddy at this point). The soul slowly detached from the body and the chocked breaths came to a rattling halt. "You are going to regret this" Jim informed her in a bored drawl while examining his own corpse. Even he, himself, didn't look very convinced by that threat.

"I don't think so." Joan didn't feel particularly angry now that the man presented no danger, but she could feel Sherlock's fury at the whole situation, and it was enough to spark the fire. Feeling the cold of death recede, she pressed her left hand against Jim-the-ghost's chest, right where his heart would have been. The beat of a deathly cold under his ribcage made her frown. _Necromancers are so much closer to the other side than any of us. _Looking him in the eyes (_black, black, the abyss stares back at me_), Joan dropped her verdict with grim finality: "Burn."

He didn't scream. Instead, he laughed manically till the fire consumed every last bit of his soul and ashes scattered in the chlorine-filled space.

**# #**

Sherlock watched from his position on the ground as Joan judged and burned the consulting criminal's soul. His whole body felt drained. There was a slight prickling all over his skin he used to associate with severe blood loss, but it was not possible. There were no physical injuries.

Whatever Joan did (_giving her soul, isn't it like dying again, but she's here, she's right here_), it triggered something inside of him, and he had acted on pure instinct. _Fact:__ I am a descendent of a powerful bloodline. __Fact:__ I could see ghosts since my early childhood. __Hypothesis:__ My inborn power was not fully awakened._

_Fact:__ John's power was not awakened prior to her being shot. __Conclusion:__ Traumatic events can trigger the awakening._

_Fact:__ I had just witnessed John kill her own physical body and give up her soul. __Fact:__ John is my friend. __Fact:__ It had been traumatic for me. __Fact:__ I had broken Moriarty's curse. __Conclusion:__ I had just awakened the full power of my bloodline. __Hypothesis confirmed._

There were confusing feelings in the mind palace, ranging between mindless anger against Jim to numbing sadness in the face of Joan's sacrifice to gutting desperation of the realization that he couldn't save her in the end, all this laced with bone-crushing tiredness. At the same time, there was a sense of calm, tinged with yet another kind of sadness he couldn't begin to comprehend, enveloping him in a gentle embrace. It was not his own and when Sherlock looked closely at Joan's ghost, standing at parade rest over the corpse of Jim Moriarty, he knew where that oddly serene feeling came from.

"Sherlock?" A disembodied hand gently pressed against his forehead, divinely cold for his feverish state, and pushed away the hair that stuck to the sweaty skin. "You alright?"

_When did I close my eyes? Irrelevant. Should I open them? Too much effort, abort… _"This required more energy than I anticipated" he answered instead.

There was a half-chuckle, half-disbelieving sigh, but the hand remained on his forehead. "You really should get out of here, you know."

"Can't." _Too tired. _The sense of calm slightly altered to include a gnawing worry. "Stop that" he finally cracked one eyelid to observe the range of emotions on Joan's face.

"Stop what?" she not-quite-snapped back at him.

"Worrying. I'm not the one who's dead." The comeback rolled off his tongue naturally, lost in the familiarity of her presence and their banter, and it hit him like a ton of bricks. _She's dead. Oh god, she had been alive only thirty minutes ago, and now she's dead for real._

Sherlock barely registered the sound of laboured breathing and the pain in his fists that slammed on the tiled floor. It was the urgency in Joan's voice that made him look up through water that somehow ended up in his eyes. "Sherlock, don't! Breathe, just breathe!" She was down on the floor with him, hands running up and down his back, painting soothing circles he wasn't supposed to even feel. "It's alright…"

"You were alive" he chocked out. _Why is it so hard to speak, is it the after-effect of the curse?_ Blue eyes widened in surprise, then glanced back at the lifeless body slumped in the chair. She shrugged. For some reason, the dismissive gesture enraged Sherlock anew. "Unacceptable!" he growled, making Joan startle and stare at him. Battling against uncooperative muscles, he pushed himself up, with considerable amount of panting, groaning and swatting away helpful hands. "You… you think that you can just… give up on living, and that'll be fine?!" She stood up in front of him, stunned into silence by the outburst. "That you can… sacrifice yourself and I'll just… What? Take it and move on? Is that it?!"

The outrage finally got a reaction out of the ghost, who scoffed. "Yeah, calm down, would you. I'm the one who's dead here."

"You don't seem overly upset about it!" He felt like he was falling into pieces and there was nothing, absolutely nothing to hold him together now.

Joan remained nonplussed. "You can just call me back."

_What._ These words effectively cut the grass under his feet. He glanced from the ghost to the physical body in disbelief, only encouraged by the soft amusement that now caressed his consciousness. Forgetting about the exhaustion, Sherlock was at Joan's side in three leaps, falling to his knees again, clutching the cold hands of Captain Watson. She did sport a small triumphant smile frozen in death. Slowly, very carefully, he cupped her cheek. "Come back to me" he ordered with as much conviction as he could muster.

For several agonizing seconds nothing happened. Then the light of a soul sipped back into Joan and her body rocked with a shuddering first breath. He jumped to support her, water clouding his vision again, and she gasped in his embrace, trying to readjust to the normal living functioning.

When the breathing was more or less under control, Joan's blue gaze focused on him, a tired smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "Hey there" she managed, before slipping into rem sleep.

Content with hearing her lazy breathing, Sherlock crumbled like a marionette with its strings cut, finally succumbing to the fatigue. His head laid in Joan's lap and one arm cradled her waist, the other just grasping at the hem of her hospital gown. _That's good_, he remembered thinking before falling into darkness.

**# #**

Joan came back to consciousness to the sound of two posh voices. "You are being unreasonable, brother dear."

"I am certainly not, Mycroft. You will cease your meddling at once, or…"

"Or what? You'll go meet a terrorist again?"

She frowned and forced her eyes open, only to close them quickly again because of the brightness. It wasn't too bright, to be honest, but the prolonged disuse and the white colour on the walls didn't help her vision to adjust.

"As much as it pains you to admit, I do know what I'm doing!" Judging by the sounds, Sherlock was now pacing in a limited space.

"And that is why you had spent a week in the hospital?"

_A week?!_ This time, Joan put in more effort to keep her eyes open. "You know full well that I was good to go after an overnight observation!"

She managed to turn her head in time to catch her very first glimpse of Holmes the older, who was making a politely disgusted face at the time. "Ah yes, getting sentimental about this **stray**. You are quite attached to her, aren't you?"

The condescending tone was what got to her. "'Course he is" she croaked from the bed, startling both Holmeses. "We are soul-bound."

"John!" Sherlock rushed to her side, producing a cup of water and a straw along the way. _Since when is he so considerate?_ She smiled tiredly at him.

"What do you mean by soul-bound, Miss Watson?" Mycroft asked immediately, grip tightening around his umbrella handle. Sherlock glared.

Joan observed the older brother for several seconds. During her remission, she had left to see Billy the psychic (ghosts really had it easy with the whole going-through-walls business) who had filled her in on Sherlock's doings and on her own bloodline. That, combined with the instinctual knowledge that flowed through her veins, made her realize a lot of things. First of all, she knew that the ritual of soul-gifting didn't go as expected. It ended up being a not-so-bad alternative, since it didn't actually erase her existence, as initially planned.

"Just that. I intended to give him my soul entirely, but we got bound instead." Mycroft's sudden pallor didn't bode well. "You understood what I just said." _Yet, he doesn't show any signs of an active bloodline._

The confusion on Sherlock's face morphed into pure anger. "You knew!" he screamed at his brother. "You bloody knew all this time!" Mycroft took a cautious step back in face of the thundering rage.

"Sherlock…" Joan tugged at his sleeve, successfully preventing a fratricide in a hospital room. "He can't **see**."

Still fuming, the detective relented in his attempts to strangle his brother. "So he learned about it as part of his work. And didn't you think, brother mine, that I would have benefited from that knowledge?" The biting question made Mycroft's already bad complexion even worse.

"You were doing well" the older Holmes finally chocked out, standing unnaturally still.

Sherlock seemed so furious, words abandoned him. So Joan took over from her bed, struggling to make long sentences on a parched throat. "He had been running from himself, all this time. The rebellion, the drugs… All means of escape from his nature. He hadn't been doing well since you sent him to a shrink as a kid." Mycroft's piercing gaze switched from Sherlock to Joan, still not betraying the deep-seated guilt the doctor could see emanating from his soul. "Your brother is amazing. Had always been. You can't cotton him up and leave him stew in his darkness. He is meant to be so much more."

Their eyes met. This time Mycroft didn't hide his unease (at least not all of it). But something in the calm determination she tried to portray seemed to convince him. He nodded sharply, turned on his heels and left without uttering another word.

"He'll come around" Joan offered after a moment.

"Hopefully not" Sherlock huffed in response and they dissolved into giggles. "Thank you" he gasped when they calmed down a bit.

"I should be thanking you for resurrecting me" she said, making a gesture towards the water cup. Without batting an eye, Sherlock obliged and held the straw to her mouth. "You were quite impressive."

"So what's this about a soul-bond?" She could see he was overflowing with curiosity.

"Basically, our souls have a much closer connexion than any other given pair. It would make us more sensitive to each other emotional states. As far as I know, the bond can erode over time and can get stronger if the relationship between the two souls grows better." _As far as botched rituals go, I'm happy with this one._

Sherlock blinked, assimilating the new information, and pulled a chair to sit next to her. "So…" he stared, unsure. "What would you like to do now, that you're not a ghost?"

_What indeed._ "I don't know… Need to find a place to stay first."

There was a tingle of barely concealed excitement coming from the man. "I know someone who's looking for a flatmate."

"Oh? You do?" she played along, not bothering to contain her own grin.

"Yes. A very nice place on Baker Street."


	7. John meets Jim

**A/N: **Do you remember Sebastian Moran from the main fic? This is the story of "what if Joan met Moran before ever going to Bart's?" (or another failed attempt at evil John). For the sake of the timeline, Joan had been sent home a year earlier. And I went a bit wild on her background.

Also, thank you so much for the reviews, and follows & favs! :) Love you all 3

**Disclaimer: '**Sherlock' belongs to all the important people that you know. You recognize it, I don't own it.

**Warning:** Language; Mentions of abuse.

**# #**

The world was grey. That's the conclusion Joan reached after the umptieth appointment with Ella. Nothing happened. Ever.

The doctor gritted her teeth and continued walking. She half-heartedly decided to go through a park to chase away some of the darkest thoughts. She wasn't very far from her objective when someone gasped behind her. She paid them no mind, there were other problems to ponder about.

Perhaps she should have bothered.

A large hand grabbed her good shoulder and yanked her into an alley. Disabled, but not untrained, Joan jerked away, striking blindly back with her cane. The attacker grunted, more in surprise than in pain, and she broke free, and far enough to actually see his face. "Moran" the ex-soldier breathed out, stunned.

The dishonourably discharged colonel sneered down at her, still massaging his stomach where the cane hit. "Watson."

Very wary of this particular man, Joan took a careful step back. Unfortunately, it meant getting farther from the main street. "Didn't expect to see you" she said conversationally, eyes darting around the narrow space in search of an escape.

He smirked back. "I was surprised when I spotted you. Can't pass up this chance."

_I am so doomed_, Joan had the time to think before Moran lashed out. Luckily, the close quarters were at her advantage – she was smaller, faster and armed with a metallic cane. The adrenaline shot made her forget completely about the rebellious leg, something her aggressor did not expect, after having seen the horrendous limp she sported on the street. However, the colonel was bigger, stronger and angrier. It was not an easy match.

They exchanged blows, Moran landing two hits on her right side, while Watson aimed at his stomach and throat. When he started to literally growl in rage, Joan decided that _screw the fair-play _and stuck forward with her cane, landing a heavy blow into the man's groin. Angry mountain of muscles or not, few could remain upright after that one. Having her opponent bent in two, she didn't hesitate a second (_as if _**_he_**_ would spare me_) to bash the cane over his head, two, three times, until the man collapsed, leaving her panting in pain from the unplanned exercise.

Medical training kicked in, and Joan crouched to check his vitals. _Severe concussion coming up. Possible brain swelling. _Remembering full well why Moran had been discharged in the first place, she couldn't bring herself to feel guilty about his current state. The adrenaline wore off, and her leg felt like a lump of jelly. _Alright, Watson. Get out. Call an ambulance. Get home._

She stumbled out of the alley, without attracting much attention despite her dishevelled appearance. Spotting a phone box, she limped towards it, cursing under her breath. "Could you please send an ambulance to Limeburner Lane? There is an unconscious man behind the restaurant." Hanging up before any questions could be asked, Joan almost jumped out of the box. _Good. Now let's get home._

**_# #_**

A week went by without any highlights. She didn't talk about her little adventure to her therapist (she wasn't **that** crazy), but now she was literally itching to fight again. To do something. Anything. To feel her blood burn. As if to nag her about the stillness of the days, the damn leg decided to be in incessant pain. It was a dull throb most of the time, but still very annoying.

_Maybe I should sign up for that shooting range, after all_, Joan thought darkly, limping back to the bedsit with a small bag full of groceries. She started to bring her gun with her all the time now. It felt safer, even if Moran should have been out for the count for at least a month. _A little practice wouldn't hurt._ With that small decision, Joan pushed her door open and fumbled for the light.

She didn't exactly **hear** it, but instantly knew that someone was breathing inside. The door clicked shut, the light switched on, and green apples were rolling over the floor while Joan steadily aimed her gun at an unknown slim man in a suit who lounged on her bed.

"My, my, careful, aren't we?" he drawled with glee, black eyes assessing her without an ounce of fear.

"What are you doing in my flat?" Her voice was low, not quite menacing. There was enough threat in a loaded gun.

"You call **this **a flat?" the stranger snorted. "I can give you better."

"Do I have to repeat myself?" Joan growled now, shifting closer to the kitchen counter.

Black eyes flashed with anger and surprisingly more glee. "Feisty. I can see why Sebby got bashed in by you."

_Sebby?... Sebastian._ "You with Moran?" It didn't look good at all. She could hold her own against one man, but not a gang.

"He's one of my pets. You did quite a number on him… Joan."

_Shit. Shit. This is bad._ "Not sorry" she said instead.

"Gooood" he exclaimed, leaning forward, propping his elbows on his knees. "Very good. He acted like an idiot, and I don't like stupid." Joan frowned in silence, gun still aimed at the stranger's head. "You look so harmless, but it's a mask, innit, Joan?"

"Wanna find out?" she quirked an eyebrow, finger tightening on the trigger.

His smile stretched forever and showed too much teeth. "I want you to work for me."

_Wha…_ "Who are you?"

"Jim Moriarty. Hi!" He even waved a hand at her, smirking. Joan's brain froze. _Moriarty. Bloody Moriarty is offering me a job. _The name was well-known at her 'side' job, the man had fingers in a shit-ton of pies around the world, including bribery, extortion and assassinations. Someone she knew rather well (_someone precious, a presence so dear she never really recovered from its loss_) had lost his life, trying to take down a branch of Moriarty's network.

"Why?" she managed to spit out, slightly lowering her weapon. Knowing the character, she could shoot him, but a sniper would have her head the next second. Not worth the trouble.

"I read you file." _Daaamn._ "Occasional" - he did an air quote and winked - "MI6 agent, involved in various operations in the Middle East, while keeping up with her regular tours. Real medical degree and experience. Thrown out like a rag." His gaze was boring into her soul with sick intensity. "I can give you the fight you want."

"I'm no assassin, Mr Moriarty."

"Oh no, no, no, don't be so formal. Call me Jim." His sing-songy voice was seriously grating on her nerves. "And try another one, would you? I know what happened in August." Joan dropped her hands at her sides, staring at him in disbelief. _His network is larger than we thought._ "They let you down. You don't owe them anything now."

Such mind tricks might have worked on most people, but Joan Watson knew exactly where she stood in regard to Jim and his activities. _If I refuse, I die. If I accept, it will be a tough game. But I could take him down. He's right, he _**_can _**_give me the fight I want. Just not the one he imagines I need._

"They'll come after me" she stated plainly. _True enough._

"Well, there are some perks in working for me, honey!" Jim leapt up, stretching his arms over his head. "So?"

"You have a deal, Jim" Joan said, holding her hand out.

"Gooood" the man purred, shaking it with an iron grip. "Now, let's get you out of this dump."

**_# #_**

Jim brought her to a small new flat (a real one) in Central London, furnished in a modern, sober style, saying that someone would bring her things here soon. He then proceeded to plop into a leather chair and stare her down. "Well, don't just stay there, sit down."

Joan obeyed with a brief nod. After an uneasy silence, she spoke up: "What do you want me to do exactly?"

His smile was definitely unsettling. "Watch some people, intimidate some others. Kill some. The usual."

"Sounds easy enough."

"It is, right?" He leaned forward in the chair. "If you're wondering why would I need **you **for this kind of trivia, don't worry your pretty blond head. We'll work something out to please both of us. My pets are never bored."

"Well, isn't that a relief" Joan drawled in the most sarcastic tone she could muster.

It made Jim laugh out loud. Somehow, it sounded wrong. "I will be just upstairs if you need me." The simple statement was laden with promise of death.

She caught up on the subtext rather quickly. _I am a prized toy he'll keep an eye on. _"Wouldn't your other minions be jealous?"

Moriarty threw his head back in hollow laughter again. "You took out Sebby, Joan. They would not dare to touch you." She managed to smirk evilly back at him.

"Last question… Jim." Black eyes bored into her soul. "Should I keep up my routine?"

"Why, yes, Johnny" he purred. "I need you to look harmless."

**_# #_**

It had been weeks since she accepted the devil's contract. Joan never felt so dirty before. Threatening and harming people, no matter how bad or criminally compromised they were, was not something she enjoyed. She had to pretend, though. She had to keep it up.

News of her new occupation must have started to spread, so she negotiated a night off with Jim. "Have to be harmless, you said." He grinned menacingly, but let her go to the pub where Bill Murray, her field nurse during regular tours, was waiting.

They shared a couple of beers, talking about all and nothing, when Joan dropped the hint. "I do some freelancing for a guy now. He's a tough cookie."

Bill gave her a sharp glance. Apparently, he knew exactly what was going on. "How did that happen?" he asked lightly.

"Through an old acquaintance. Helped him out long time ago with his early retirement. He was **very **thankful."

Bill's eyes darkened. He remembered Moran well enough to get the reference. "Well, that's nice. Does it pay well?"

Joan glared at him behind her beer jug. "I'm not doing this for money. It was an opportunity… that I couldn't pass." _To get deep enough and destroy it all. _"Could you tell Lilly for me? She must be worried sick." Bill snorted while taking a sip, and started coughing, beer running from his nose. "Ugh, Murray…"

"Your fault" he managed to gasp, while cleaning the mess with a napkin. "Yeah, I'll let Lilly know."

The conversation steered towards safer shores after that, and they parted with promises to keep in touch. Moriarty's listeners (because of course he had her under surveillance) couldn't have picked up on anything suspicious. However, the message was out. Bill Murray had never been involved with MI6 in official capacity, but he knew enough people in the agency to be introduced to some codes and protocols. 'Lilly' was the field liaison and a prime candidate for Quarter Master, Liam Hendricks, who **hated** his codename with passion. Informing him would keep rogue hunters off her back for the time being and ensure a proper support in the future.

That night, Joan slept well for the first time in months.

**_# #_**

She had been doing it for a year, occasionally getting out updates through Bill. She was constantly feeling like some sort of slime was all over her skin now, and no amount of showering would get it off. In the beginning, she tried to curb the madness and avoid the needless harm but learned soon enough that disobedience hurt. Badly. And did nothing but more harm to those she tried to shield.

Her only bet was to get access to Jim's database and take him out as quickly as possible.

The madman was a genius. Such a brilliant mind drowned in malicious vengeance. He saw paths where nobody would dare to go, he launched plans too crazy to succeed and succeeded anyway. Jim Moriarty was scarily impressive.

But like all geniuses, he had blind spots. He didn't understand why some people acted outside of his schemes, though the answer was simple – these persons cared for someone else more than for themselves. But no-one, Joan included, would tell him that.

One day in September, he called her into his office and pointed at a large screen on the wall. A CCTV footage was showing a tall man in a coat talking with two policemen. It looked like a fight was about to break out between them. "What am I looking at?" she asked casually.

"Sherlock Holmes" the madman said, a wistful smile on his lips. It was creepy enough to make Joan shudder slightly.

Usually, being blunt and uninterested was the best strategy when the boss decided to play spooky. "What do you want me to do with him?"

Jim tore his eyes away from the screen to stare blankly at her. "Watch him. Keep him alive until I have everything in place." Surprised at the order, Joan nodded stiffly and walked away. Moriarty had some fixations pop up out of the blue. They didn't last very long.

She's done some research on the man. The blog, Science of Deduction, was stern-looking and populated with strange information. Perplexed, Joan run through her copy of the special forces database (the job did have its perks). There were several flags on the man, mostly surveillance and approach with caution type. He seemed to be linked to someone powerful but operating on an independent basis. _A freelancer._ Then she checked his blog again and corrected herself with a small smile. _A consultant._

Trailing after Sherlock Holmes on her free hours was not always easy. The man could dash forward in a second or climb a roof and jump from building to building to avoid traffic. He seemed to exasperate the police force to the point of violence. Still, a grey-haired detective kept calling him in. _Must be a good friend._ There was a black car, appearing occasionally in his wake, with a tall man inside that exuded power. _Mycroft Holmes_, she recognized from glimpses of information gleaned during her service. _That's the powerful connection alright_.

Her reports went to Jim without any follow-up, but she kept on painstakingly typing them out. The fixation didn't seem to pass. After a few weeks, she knew exactly why Moriarty was so enamoured with Sherlock. _A genius_. The consultant in an expensive coat was a genius on par with the criminal mastermind she worked for. It was like a distorted mirror, similar and strikingly different at the same time. It was no wonder Jim assumed that Sherlock was merely playing around to avoid boredom. That's what **he** would do, after all.

But Joan saw the compassion in silver eyes when Holmes gave money and jobs to homeless people. She heard the tenderness and sometimes the veiled pain in the violin melody flowing down from his windows at night. He was different. He was better.

It was an unpleasant surprise to pass by Baker Street one night in January and see Sherlock get in the cab with one of Jim's latest pet projects, Jeff Hope. Swearing under her breath, she caught a cab of her own and followed them, arriving a bit too late at the parking. Sighing in defeat, she picked a building at random and ran. It took a long time to find the right window.

In growing horror, she watched the serial killer talk Sherlock Holmes into playing his twisted little game. _Damn, what now? Jim wouldn't like it, not at all. He said to keep Sherlock alive._ The gun was already out and the security off. _Goodbye, Mister Hope._

She didn't stick around for the police to arrive. She had a beating to attend.

**_# #_**

In the end, Jim wasn't that cross about losing his sponsored serial killer. Just slapped her three times before congratulating on keeping 'dear Sherlock' safe. _He is way too obsessed with the man, _Joan thought. But then again, she started to look forward to her little spying sessions.

A week after the death of Jeff Hope, Sherlock was called on a suspicious mugging while she was watching him. Eager to see the consultant in action for once, Joan hovered with the crowd behind the police line. She caught a glimpse of the victim's face, bloodied and swollen, and cringed. It was one of low-level thugs in Moriarty's local racketeering ring.

She was about to leave when a woman burst through the line, calling for 'Alan', a young girl in tears clinging to her skirt. _Wife and child. Oh god. Oh god, no, I can't, I can't…_

**_# #_**

Sherlock frowned at the interruption. Distressed families were not his area of expertise, and he would have preferred to avoid them. While Donovan made herself useful (for once) and went to calm down the wife, he swept a passing glance over the gathering crowd. He didn't expect to spot anything interesting, but someone struck him as odd.

It was a blond woman in her late thirties, greying hair in a pixie cut, an oversized hoodie dangling from her lean frame. Even from the distance, the expression of absolute suffering on her face made him pause. Her eyes were glued to the family, specifically to the crying child. There were memories under the surface, ghosts shadowing age lines around her eyes, and also guilt. _Interesting._

As if shaken from a dream, the woman briefly closed her eyes, and turned away, relocating to a dark corner behind a shop, slumping against the wall. Sherlock glanced at the officers around him. All eyes were riveted to the family, with various degrees of pity. _Useless,_ he huffed, and walked away.

The stranger was attempting breathing exercises in the shadows. _Familiar with flashbacks._ Her back was straight as a rode, and jaw clenched in a stubborn line. _Military._ She heard his approach and tensed without sparing him a look. _Well-trained._

"You know who killed him" he stated calmly, as if talking about the weather.

Dark blue eyes turned to him, tired and resigned. Her voice, however, came with a thick American accent and expressed nothing but blatant nonchalance: "What's that, man?"

There was a bump on her back that he identified as an automatic gun. "Don't play dumb."

"Whaaa?" She even batted eyelashes at him, without much conviction.

"I doubt they condone this behaviour in the army" he almost pouted.

The woman sighed and looked away, pushing her hands deep into her pockets. "Is it still that obvious?" The accent was pure working-class Londoner now. **This **one sounded natural.

Sherlock started spilling out his observations at the usual subsonic speed. "You are a career soldier, acclimatized to war zones, judging by your posture, haircut and reflexes. Given that most ongoing conflicts are happening way South of London, and you sport no suntan, you have been discharged, a year ago at least. Your phrasing - "still" - seems to collaborate this theory. You are armed, used to danger and shaken by the scene you just witnessed. It brought back a flashback from your service, but the sight of the kid shook you even more. You feel guilty. But you have not killed that man, that much is obvious. Therefore, you know who did."

The soldier blinked at him owlishly, before a soft smile graced her lips, taking years away from her. "Brilliant." _Huh?! _"But I already knew that." _What…! _"I don't know **who **exactly killed him, but I know why." She looked away in the distance. "Moths always get burnt by the candle. Sometimes, it is better to stay in the dark, Mister Holmes."

Sherlock was stunned speechless. Not only the mysterious she-soldier appeared on his crime scene, knowing something of importance and speaking in riddles, she also knew him by name. It could mean only one thing. _Moriarty._ But before he could question her some more, Lestrade was calling. He looked away impatiently, and when he turned back, the woman was gone.

**_# #_**

Next time he saw her was weeks later. He caught a glimpse of familiar short blond hair in the Starbucks and made a beeline inside. There she was, yawning her jaw off in the queue.

Feeling mischievous, he crept just behind her and said in a low sultry voice right by her ear: "Long nights?"

She tensed but didn't jump away as planned. He belatedly realized that there was a mirror behind the counter, and she could see his approach. Tired blue eyes gazed upon him, openly amused, but not mocking. "I will not talk to you."

That seemed a bit harsh. "Why not?"

"My employer forbids any direct contact with you without his express and prior permission." _Oh. OH._

"Your employer?" he heard himself ask.

"You know very well who I work for" the woman smirked. _Of course, I know,_ Sherlock wanted to snap. But his thoughts derailed to an unexpected realization - _her affiliation is very obvious, yet I perceive no threat from her. Either she is exceptionally good at concealing it, or she is harmless. _He looked at the enigmatic woman again, confirming his previous assessment about the military career and special training. _Far from harmless._ There was a faint smile playing on her lips, while she pretended to focus on the list of beverages. _But she honestly wishes _**_me_**_ no harm._ _Odd. _**_Fascinating_**_._

Her turn to order came, and she took a large latte with a blueberry scone. Finally, there was a name to put on the face.

"John" Sherlock said, following her like a duckling. No reaction. "Not a very feminine name."

"Don't get me started on the names" she grumbled, looking intently at the counter. _Touché._

"So, tell me, **John**" – she twitched at the sound of her name – "Why so mysterious?" John sighed, picking up her order and went around him to get a table. Sherlock followed suite. Ignoring completely the fidgeting detective, she took a sip of her coffee and nipped at the pastry. "You should change you jogging route, go through a park for a change" he tried to make her react.

It earned him a half-hearted glare. "Don't show off. I know how brilliant you are, Mister Holmes. I've watched you enough for that." He felt his left eyebrow twitch at this.

"Watched me?"

"Yeah, I'm your occasional babysitter" John smirked slightly. Sherlock leaned forward, smelling a lead like a hound. "Don't start" she waved him off. "I'm not telling you anything… anymore."

"Why not?"

John finished her scone before looking him straight in the eyes. "Because you are a fool, Mister Holmes." Her gaze was steady and dead serious. "You underestimate Moriarty just because he is crazy. Believe me, this is a madman you need to tread carefully with." She stood up, towering over his stunned form on the worn coffee-house couch. "You are getting caught up in a web you are not able to untangle. Get away while you can, Sherlock."

And just like the first time, she was gone like a wind, a large latte in hand.

**_# #_**

Her words kept ringing in his head during the whole five pips case. _You are a fool, Mister Holmes_. It had not been a threat. A friendly warning, perhaps. _A fool_. Was he really? Sometimes, Sherlock felt strangely irritated by these words. _Who is she to judge _**_me_**_? _Sometimes, he was thoroughly confused. _Why try to scare me away? It is not in line with Moriarty's previous actions._ These doubts spoiled the fun of the chase, despite the absolute delightfulness of the case. Such elegant puzzles, such convolute messages! And yet… _Who is she? What is _**_her _**_game?_

_Who is John?_

**_# #_**

The events went fast, way too fast. One night she was scolding Sherlock Holmes in a coffee-house, the other night Jim was dressing up weirdly and leaving her to watch his office. The flash drive Liam had provided through Bill was burning holes in the secret compartment of her bra. _Now or never, Watson._

Somehow, the copying of the entire database went undetected. Jim was far too busy with his little game, reading gleefully through reports from field operatives. He kept Joan at his side, prepping the snipers and going over exit strategies. She tried hard to not fidget in anticipation. _Soon. Soon._

_All the dead, innocent and guilty alike, soon I will beg your forgiveness. I will make it worth. Soon. Just a bit, wait just a little longer._

While Jim was busy supervising the abduction of a police officer, of all things, she took time to send the tip to Liam. She taped them into the radio frequency. The operation had to be silent and extremely quick. The stand-off at the pool had started.

When Sherlock showed up, Joan refrained from rolling her eyes. _The idiot couldn't heed a warning._ She felt sorry for the young detective and his grey-haired friend but kept repeating in her head that it will be over soon. _Soon._ When Jim went out in the open, Joan switched to the regular special ops frequency. "Liam" she called softly.

"We're in position, Jay" he answered immediately.

"Take out the snipers first, upper floors" she said. "Do not tick him off. There is enough C4 to level the block. Keep the lasers on the targets."

"On it." Silent shadows crept through the building, eliminating Moriarty's men. She stood in the stands, hidden from view, waiting for the update. Less than five minutes later, while Sherlock and Jim were having their crazy argument, she heard an "All done" in her ear.

"Keep up the pretence. I could not ascertain about the detonation switch."

"Noted."

Then Jim stepped out of the pool, leaving the remaining two men breathe deeply in obvious relief. "Keep your positions. There is a follow-up" she said in the radio. She didn't have to catch the order on the now silent line to know the timing. "Lasers at the two civvies."

The team complied without protest. "Sorry, boys!" Jim's cheerful voice rang through the empty pool, making Holmes and Lestrade startle. "I'm soooo changeable!" Moriarty came out, arms spread.

Joan didn't listen to the end of the scripted monologue. It was time. _Soon. _"Keep positions" she said into the radio before tossing it aside. _Now._ Gun in hand, she ran through empty corridors and to the door Jim used as his first entry point.

"Then probably my answer has crossed yours" Sherlock's deep baritone stated, and she could physically feel the tension.

_Now._

**_# #_**

"No." The voice was loud and clear in the chlorine filled air. All three of them turned towards its source.

"John?" Sherlock wondered aloud, bemused. "John?" Lestrade echoed in a confused whisper - he had never even heard about this woman in Sherlock's entourage.

John, the mysterious soldier, was standing at parade rest at the other end of the pool, staring calmly at Jim Moriarty. Who looked positively livid at the moment. "Care to explain, **John**?" he hissed at her.

The woman moved forward, calm, non-threatening, her level voice resonating through the stuffy space. "Isn't it obvious, Jim? I've set you up. You're not the only one who's cunning." All laser dots suddenly disappeared. _The sniper team had been taken out, possibly minutes ago._

"You little b itch!" Jim exploded. His attempt at attacking her was stopped by a gun (_the automatic hidden under the hoodie_) trained square at his head. "You think they'll take you back with this, huh, Johnny? You're over, whatever you do!"

She cocked her head to the side without changing her serene expression. "I know. I don't need redemption. And since you won't understand the sheer loyalty one could feel for their country, I'll give my own reason." Her smile was glacial. "You killed my fiancé." Apparently, it was a surprise for Jim who stepped back, eyes wide. "Burn in hell, Jim."

The shot exploded in the stuffy silence like a real bomb. Both Sherlock and Greg flinched away. The deafening crack was followed shortly by a dull trump of a body hitting the hard ground. John lowered her weapon, staring dispassionately at the dead man in front of her.

There was a small black hole between Jim's eyes.

**_# #_**

They were ushered outside by a team in bomb disposal suits. John was already there, being hugged and yelled at by a thin man with enormous glasses. "…do that again! I'm not burying another one!"

She smiled at him sheepishly, but it was full of pain and guilt. _She's not planning on living much longer_, Sherlock realized with a start. Disregarding the still shaky Lestrade who sputtered indignantly in his wake, he walked towards the pair. John had fished something out of her pocket and silently slipped it into the man's hand.

"Can you talk to me now?" he demanded imperiously.

The glasses-man made to stand between them, but a soft "Liam" from John stopped him. She gave Sherlock another one of her sincere and painful smiles. "Yes. What do you want to know?"

There was a ton of questions running through his mind, but he settled on the most important. "Your name?"

"John Watson" she answered without missing a beat.

"Who are you?"

"You already know that" she huffed. "A discharged soldier. A murderer."

Liam frowned, and Sherlock felt like agreeing with him. _She is not a cold-blooded killer._ Before he could protest, a swarm of black-suited armed men surrounded them. Sherlock startled, but John and her companion looked at them with recognition.

"Miss Watson" said a familiar voice. _Mycroft. _"Surrender your weapons."

John looked at the assembled bodyguards, or whatever their job title was, with strange longing. "Would you kill me if I don't?"

"John!" Liam cried out in shock, gripping her shoulder.

"Kidding" she said lightly (_she isn't_, Sherlock noted with a strange sinking feeling in his gut) and tossed her gun on the ground. "That's all I have, Mister Holmes."

"Allow me to verify it" the pretentious prat drawled, and a bulky agent stepped forward. The bodily check was not gentle, and Liam looked about to explode.

However, Sherlock was the first to reach the boiling point: "What is the meaning of this, Mycroft?!"

"Step away, Sherlock" the older brother pleaded patiently.

He was having none of it. "Explain yourself **now**!"

It was John who answered instead, handcuffs already glinting on her wrists. "I worked for Jim for over a year. It is time to pay my due."

"Nonsense!" Liam butted in. "You were on an approved undercover mission."

"The murder of James Moriarty was **not **approved, Agent" was Mycroft's stern response from behind his men.

"We were about to get blown to pieces!" Sherlock protested, stepping forward but being blocked by the nameless men. John was led away.

"The situation was under control, brother dear" the walking embodiment of annoyance stated, finally getting closer to them. "Didn't you notice how no sniper fired despite the change in the scenario?"

Unable to formulate a thought, Sherlock pushed his way through the human shield towards the blond soldier. "John!" He wasn't sure what he wanted to say, or why, but he simply knew that she couldn't be taken away, not like that.

She turned slightly towards him, giving a soft smile that made her look younger by decades. "Goodbye, Mister Holmes."

**_# #_**

Sherlock was busy burning holes in Mycroft's carpet by pacing in circles. His thoughts were all jumbled, but somehow, he knew with crystal clarity that John Watson was not an enemy. In those three brief and very strange encounters, she became his friend. Perhaps, he didn't designate this feeling as 'friendship', but he was intrigued, bemused, drawn to the puzzle of John Watson's existence, and extremely angry at her lack of self-preservation. It was as close to friendship as he was going to get for the moment.

Meanwhile, information slotted itself into correct boxes in Sherlock's mind. _Soldier. Agent. High morals. Medically discharged. Had been misjudged and scouted by Moriarty. Accepted in order to make him fall. Traumatized by what she had to do to gain rank in the organization. Ready to die as a punishment. Doesn't hold a will to live anymore._ It was not acceptable.

"You are making my head spin" Mycroft's voice droned from the door.

"Mycroft" Sherlock hissed in anger.

"Calm down, would you, brother." The older Holmes walked slowly to his chair, sat down and eyed his sibling with fond exasperation. "Why are you so upset about Miss Watson?"

Sherlock froze in place for a second. "She tried to save me" he finally said. "She was instrumental to Moriarty's downfall." _And now she just wants to die. How is it fair?_ he wanted scream.

Mycroft sighed heavily and leaned back. "Vauxhall Cross is on the verge of a riot. Half of the field operatives swore that they would go rogue, break her out and hide her away if I even think of charging Joan Watson with treason." Sherlock blinked at him in surprise. "The other half simply promised to assassinate me instead." A smile started tugging at the younger man's lips. "Such devotion speaks highly of her character. However…" There was a tense pause before he continued. "She wants to be punished. To be jailed, or worse."

Sherlock cringed. "Such assignments do not leave people unscathed."

"They don't, indeed." The two siblings stared at each other in calculating silence. "That leaves me with a medically trained suicidal agent about to be nominated for the Victoria's Cross."

"She needs a mission." _Something to live for._

Mycroft sighed again, seemingly coming to a decision. "How do you feel about a flatmate, Sherlock?"

**_# #_**

Joan stayed put in the cell, staring blankly at the ceiling. _Over. It's over._ _Can I go now?_ The weight of her deeds under Jim's orders was pining her down, crashing, smothering. _Can I go? It is over. _Nothing mattered anymore.

The door creaked open, and she thought she was dreaming, because a tall man in a coat swept in. "How do you feel about violin?" he asked in that imperious tone of his that drew people up the wall.

Startled, she replied: "Sorry, what?"

"I play violin when I'm thinking. Sometimes I don't speak for days on end. Would that bother you?"

_What's with this…?_ "No, probably not" she said, staring at him from the hard bed.

"Perfect. The address is 221B, Baker Street. I expect you there at 7 tomorrow." He winked _– actually winked_ – at her and disappeared, leaving the door open. _What the hell just happened?_

"This is your new assignment, Doctor Watson" said a new arrival. _Mycroft Holmes._ "Or a horrible punishment from hell, as all of my men could assure you. You are going to be my brother's live-in bodyguard. You are not allowed to refuse."

"You… want **me** to watch your brother" Joan stated slowly, to make sure it wasn't an elaborate prank.

The older Holmes nodded impatiently. "This is the most efficient solution to our problems."

_Nothing matters._ "Whatever."

**_# #_**

"Welcome home, John."

**_# #_**

"There are feet in the fridge. In my yoghurt."

"Well, where else was I supposed to store it?"

"Three rotting feet! Are you bloody serious?!"

**_# #_**

"John! Come along, there is a case!"

"You want me to come with you?"

"Of course! I'd be lost without my soldier."

**_# #_**

"Sherlock, please keep the slime out of the shelves!"

"But it's for science, John!"

**_# #_**

"Fantastic!"

**_# #_**

"Why are we chasing this guy again?"

"He killed two of his partners with rat poison."

"Oh, alright."

**_# #_**

"John?"

"Yes?"

"If you had a choice, would you still stay here?"

"Of course. Don't be silly, Sherlock."

**_# #_**

"I don't have friends. I've just got one."

**_# #_**

"You're a terrible liar, Sherlock Holmes."

"But…"

"Shut up and eat your carrots."

**_# #_**

**A/N** **2: **It kinda just ends here (it is a pattern with me), because I could go on for ages with these little snippets of conversations.

Not sure what happened to Moran after the hospital, nothing good I'm afraid. Joan can pack a punch.

Keep in mind that all my insight into MI6 work comes from recent James Bond movies and that Joan's backstory here isn't what I have in mind for the main story (or do I? *mwahahaha* ... ok, getting out now).


	8. Sometimes Choices Make You

**A/N:** A little something while I keep struggling with the Hound.

**Disclaimer: '**Sherlock' belongs to all the important people that you know. You recognize it, I don't own it.

**Warning:** A lot of triggering staff. Self-harm, child abuse, questionable morals. Also, Sherlock might be slighly OOC.

**# #**

It started as another attempt to slow down the advancement of mind-shattering boredom. Sherlock bullied Lestrade into providing some cold case files. Joan had somehow gotten roped in a silly school project for her little brother and could not entertain the consultant or save the DI from said consultant.

In the fourth file, something caught his attention. The victim, Arthur Smith, 45, a failing door-to-door salesman, had been found dead in his flat in Kensington in late 2009. The death would have been ruled natural causes (apparent heart attack), if only he didn't have the roman numeral IV carved pre-mortem into his bare back then covered with a white shirt. Sherlock recalled a similar pattern in a publicized murder in early 2000's. The case hadn't interested him much at the time (perhaps the cocaine was to blame), but now… Now it was fascinating.

He stole the file and left Lestrade sorting through his illegible notes on the other cases.

Extended research using Joan's laptop dragged up old articles on the other case. Roberta McDougal, 59, housewife and mother of three, had been found dead in her spotless kitchen in Croydon in August 2001. Apparent heart failure, Mrs McDougal had a family history of cardiac problems. However, she had the number II slashed into her back under the tasteless flowery dress. The investigation slowly died after a few years and the sordid murder faded from the frontlines.

It was way too similar to Smith's death.

Sherlock frowned. If Smith was the fourth, and McDougal the second… at least two more victims were out there. He **had** to find them.

**# #**

Joan came home late (these open doors days were exhausting, and Michael trying to introduce her to all his teachers didn't help), dreaming of a hot bath and a cuppa. She was so tired, she didn't even acknowledge the still form of her flatmate in his chair beyond the casual "Hey". He didn't respond, so the doctor decided it was fair game to not engage in conversation and headed straight to the bathroom.

The hot water, to the limit of boiling, was divine for her sore muscles. Joan even dumped the lavender-scented bath bomb into it for good measure, something she had been holding on for exactly this kind of occasion. Feeling much better despite having spent the last six hours in the company of excitable teenagers and harried teachers, then some in a crowded train, she pulled on a fluffy bathrobe and made her way to the kitchen.

Sherlock had not moved from his thinking position.

The tea-making process took about five minutes, including washing the mugs (surprisingly void of any acids) and verifying that the milk had not been replaced by some obscure compound. Joan tightened the robe, grabbed the two steaming mugs and meandered into the living room. Once Sherlock's cup had been safely installed by his side, she dropped into her own chair, relishing the first sip of the beverage. She finally glanced at the fireplace mirror, once again transformed into an evidence board. There were copies of old police reports with highlighted passages, printed news articles and some photos of mangled bodies. Her eyes skimmed through the information absently until they fell on the close up of victims' backs.

_Oh crap._

Luckily, she did not startle, saving herself from second degree burns with scalding tea. Suddenly very alert, Joan focused on the cases strewn across the mirror. _Oh hell. How did he even find this?_

"Sherlock?" The man remained silent, but his nose twitched, indicating an acceptable level of awareness. "What's that about?" she gestured towards the assembled documents.

The detective took a deep breath and looked her in the eyes. "I came across something interesting in Lestrade's cold cases." _Oh dammit, of course it would be classified as Sherlock-worthy. _A wide grin slowly creeped on his face. "We have a serial killer, John!"

"Yay" she cheered unenthusiastically. "It's Christmas."

He didn't even notice the sarcasm, jumping up and pointing to the photos: "I have so far identified three victims, but there is certainly a fourth one, possibly more. The modus operandi suggests that they respond to certain criteria, but I have yet to isolate the exact details that trigger the killing." The lack of response from his small audience did not deter further monologue. "At first glance, they have nothing in common, neither their age, occupation, not even social standing. But they had all died the same way, and their deaths would have all been ruled out as natural cause, if not for the abrasions on their backs." He twirled around, eyes gleaming with excitement. "Now, that's the interesting part. The use of roman numerals suggests an educated killer, someone with a flair for drama. The victims are numbered, counted, part of a list. The time lapse between the murders can only mean that this list had been prepared in advance, and the killer will follow it meticulously, no matter how long it takes. It is personal, it is an obsession."

Joan watched him pace the room, the tea growing cold in her hands. "Can it be a message?" she offered in a shaky voice, because she was expected to contribute something.

Sherlock stared at her for a second before grinning again. "Of course! It must be, a message to the rest of the hit list, something along the lines of _You're next_! A sure method to instil fear. The victims must know each other." He frowned at the documents. "I need to think." He plopped back into his chair, absently grabbing the lukewarm mug and downing it in one gulp.

"So…" Joan started uncertainly. The man did not react. "Ok. Not going out tonight then." She finished her own tea, washed the dishes and went upstairs in a daze. The door closed softly behind her and she slid down the wall into a heap on the floor.

_I'm in so much trouble._

**# #**

There was a small metal box that Joan had left at her father's place during her deployment. She had kept the key with her though, all these years, even if the box was really easy to break in. It was, after all, just a box that a ten-year-old found in a dumpster. She had taken it back a couple of months ago, once she was certain that Sherlock had gone through her things several times and found it boring enough to never repeat the experience.

Inside the box, there was a yellowed journal, three old photos of smiling kids, a dried flower from a funeral wreath and a contract written painstakingly in a child's scrawl, signed with three names (one of which was J.H. Watson) in a suspiciously dark red ink.

There was also a torn page from a notebook, where a list of the names had been compiled over the years of snooping and lying and researching. Three of the five names were pinned to the crime scene photos downstairs.

**# #**

The third victim had been easy to track. Patrick Stanley, 39, a somewhat famous art dealer at the time, was found in July 2004 in Soho, the roman numeral III cut into his back. There was still no apparent connection between the victims, aside from their demise. _Fascinating._

As Joan had suggested, the markings were a message as much to the police as to the other victims. Knowing what put these people on a killing list would certainly lead him to the killer himself (_male, statistically more likely_). Therefore, he had to find that missing link between them. And the first victim. First victims were always the most telling. Given the timeline, the first murder had occurred in late 1990's, the records had yet to be digitalized… probably.

Sherlock growled.

Then he was back to square one. He needed to find the common denominator to narrow down the potential victims' pool and work from there to track the first murder. _Tedious_. Maybe Joan could help with the research.

**# #**

Joan had been extremely surprised that she managed to remain calm and composed through the morning. Sherlock was too busy blabbering excitedly about his new serial killer to notice the tension while they ate breakfast (he was even too busy to notice that he actually ate). The ordeal ended with the detective bullying the doctor into her coat and sending her to Scotland Yard Archives in search for the first victim. "It is crucial that you find the first one, John!"

"But there must be thousands of cases out there!" she protested weakly.

"Charm the record keeper then. Find it" he waved a dismissive hand and ducked towards a laptop. She wasn't sure whose laptop it was at this point of their cohabitation and it barely bothered her anymore, so she just sighed and left.

She must have looked utterly miserable, because Greg didn't ask twice before getting her a free pass to the archives. "That bad?" he whispered while they were waiting for the archivist to show up at her desk.

"He wants me to find a murder victim from the nineties. No gender, no approximate date, it's not even sure that the murder had taken place in London. Just the way it's done." Joan sounded bitter and resigned at the same time.

Lestrade winced. "That's rough. I can check the database for you, maybe it hadbeen scanned already?"

"You'd be a life-saviour" she answered honestly.

The DI left after a while, and the archivist dropped her in the middle of a row full of dusty boxes. "Enjoy" she said drily and disappeared soundlessly behind the shelves like a ghost.

Joan looked at the boxes and decided that she'd take another bullet any time instead of this punishment. _Better get it over with. _She scanned the labels, trying to understand the index. It took her at least half-an-hour to find the one she was looking for.

Alistair Falcone, 39, unemployed. Investigated in relation to the human trafficking ring at the time. Found dead in a warehouse his cousin owned in early 1997. Apparent heart failure. Roman numeral I craved into his back by an inexperienced hand.

Joan leafed through the file, noting that prime suspects were Falcone's partners. The Yard worked on a lead involving trafficking victims' relatives, but it went nowhere. The case went cold long ago, and would have probably remained so…

But Sherlock… No one ever counted on Sherlock bloody Holmes investigating a cold case. And she had no doubt he would be able to solve it.

Joan pulled out her phone and dialled a non-registered number. It answered after a couple of rings. "Hemlick."

"Hi, Blake. It's John."

There was a long silence on the other side before he spoke again. She patiently waited. "It's been a while."

"Listen, I know what we agreed on… but I wanted to give you a heads-up."

"On what?"

"The police linked them and is working all cases. Right now."

Blake muffled a curse. "Are you sure?"

Joan sighed and leant against a nearby shelf. "My flatmate consults for the Yard. He sent me to look for Falcone's file, which I have half-a-mind to 'not find', but he'll probably know if I lie."

"They have found nothing in fourteen years. What can they do now?"

"If anyone could solve it, it's Sherlock. So we either move up the last one or stop all this and lay low."

"We can't stop!" he hissed vehemently before trailing off. "Wait, Sherlock? Sherlock Holmes?"

"Oh, you read my blog too, didn't you?"

Blake cursed again. "Figured. And how on earth did he stumble upon this mess?" There was a bitter undertone to his voice now and Joan frowned.

"If you think I dropped a hint, think again. We can't stop trusting each other now, Blake."

"Yeah, I…" She could hear him rub his face. "I'm sorry. It's unexpected."

"I feel ya here. I almost fainted when I saw their names on the evidence board."

"Let me think about it, John. I'll call you later."

"Sure. Be careful." The call disconnected, leaving Joan alone again in a dusty space. _Dammit. _She glared at Alistair's mug shot that smirked back at her from the coffee-stained pages. _It's all your fault, Al, and you can't even pay for it anymore._ After some thought she closed the file and slipped it between random boxes three shelves down from its original place. _These things happen, after all._ Then she sat cross-legged on the floor and launched a Candy Crush game to calm her nerves.

**# #**

Sherlock was using two laptops now to compile the data. He had to trace the victims' lives at least fifteen years back. Hacking into Mycroft's records had been rather helpful, but he kept it low-profile despite the temptation to snoop around. With a bit of luck, the big brother wouldn't even notice the incursion.

So far, he managed to link dead men 3 and 4. They had gone to high school together. Mrs McDougal didn't fit into the picture though, so he growled in frustration and kept looking.

His phone chimed with a text. "**I'm grabbing a sandwich. You should too. Anything to help me narrow down the search? JW**".

Sherlock huffed indignantly. _Transport. _"**Keep looking. SH**".

**# #**

Joan pretended to look for the rest of the day. On the plus side, she caught up on some sleep. On the down side, she worked herself up thinking about what would come from Sherlock's investigation. So when she showed up at Baker Street, grumpy and jumpy, the resident headache chalked it up to the day spent going through folders without much success.

The doctor did not try to persuade him otherwise. "Do you even realize how many boxes are stored there?"

"Probably, yes" Sherlock answered absently, too busy filling in the spreadsheet. "Did you find it?"

"Of course not!" she tried to sound convincingly exasperated. "It would be nothing short of a miracle if I found anything with that little information!"

"Pity." He clicked 'save' and turned towards her. "I haven't found the common link yet."

_Thank God._ "So, bad day for both of us."

"The data gathering is rather tedious, indeed."

Joan eyed the beginning of a massive sulk, wondering whether she should ask leading questions or leave it at that. _I need to know how far he'll go._ "And what if there isn't a link? What if they were random victims that just caught the attention of some random psycho?"

Sherlock scowled at her in a way that screamed _Don't be daft._ "It is personal. He wouldn't wait **years** to hunt the next victim."

"Alright" she abdicated that line of thought. "What is killing them then? Pre-existing heart conditions?"

"Of course not. My bet is on potassium chloride." Joan blinked at the accuracy of his guess. "The most discreet way to imitate a heart attack, don't you think?"

She blinked owlishly again. "Can't disagree, yeah."

Sherlock briefly made that small self-depreciating smile he sometimes used in casual conversation. "I'm glad your medical opinion concurs with my conclusions."

_Is that Holmes-speak for 'cool, I'm right'?_ "This compound is not uncommon, though" she offered instead. "Anyone could get their hands on it."

"Indeed. Knowing how they were killed does not advance the investigation any further at this stage." His eyes strayed back to the evidence display. "I'm also looking into accessing the victims' personal effects. Unlikely that anything of importance had remained from the early ones, but we might have a shot with Smith's widow."

"Oh" Joan breathed out and had to quickly smile to hide her shock. "That's a good lead." _Alistair's notes. We never found them, neither did the police. One of them must have taken it. Damn._

**# #**

Bella Smith had been a beautiful woman in her younger days, and she was trying desperately to upkeep her fading looks. Despite her best efforts, however, the grey roots were apparent in her dark hair and the poor-quality make-up didn't conceal as much as she certainly expected. She was also having an allergic reaction to something, her eyes constantly watery and red blotches creeping up her neck.

Joan winced in sympathy when Bella sneezed for the tenth time in as many minutes. Sherlock huffed impatiently.

"I don't understand" the widow repeated, tightening her hand-knitted dark green cardigan around her. "Who are you exactly?"

"We consult with Scotland Yard" Joan firmly interrupted the undoubtedly insulting rant that was coming. "We have reason to believe that your late husband's death is related to other similar incidents and would like to ask you a few questions."

Bella stared dubiously at the pair sitting on her couch. "Alright. Ask away."

"How long have you known Arthur?"

"Oh, we met at that conference… in April 2004… no, 05!" she smiled wistfully. "It was a lightning fast romance. We were married by the end of that year." Her face darkened slightly. "I was so surprised that he'd never been married, I mean, at our age, you'd expect at least one divorce and a couple of kids."

Joan muttered a vague agreement, trying not to make parallels with her own disastrous love life. Luckily, Sherlock chose that moment to lose patience and pull out the ID photos of the other known victims. "Have your husband ever mentioned these people to you?"

"Huh…" Her brow furrowed, trying to remember. "I've seen this man on a couple of photos with Arthur" she finally said, pointing at Patrick Stanley. "School friends, but he had passed away before we met."

"Do you still have these photos?" Sherlock's eyes were sparkling with excitement.

"I kept his albums. You want to have a look?"

"Yes, please" Joan said, giving her companion a warning glance. While Bella went to search for the albums, they had a silent conversation that could be summarized as _Be nice! – I'm always nice! – You're not. Behave._

"Here" the Smith widow returned with two heavy-looking books. Sherlock had to restrain himself from snatching them from her hands.

"Thank you."

The photos were organized by date and place, which simplified the task. They leafed to Arthur's school years, in early 1980s. The first clue came on the class photo, where Smith and Stanley, young and bright, stood together grinning at the camera. Joan had to look closely to recognize them among other students, but Sherlock didn't have that problem. He hummed appreciatively, put the shot aside and continued the inspection of other pictures from that period.

Unsurprisingly to Watson, Stanley appeared in other shots as well, quite often even. _They were best friends, did everything together_, she remembered. It continued for over a decade, but starting 1997, Patrick and Arthur seemed to drift apart. There was only a couple of photos of them together after that year. _They were scared, _she thought with grim satisfaction.

"Aha!" Sherlock exclaimed, pulling another photo.

It showed Smith in a new shiny red car in the driveway of someone's house. "What's special about this one?" she asked curiously.

The detective pointed at the barely readable name on the wall behind the car. "McDougal?"_ Damn._

"We already have a link between three of the four victims" Sherlock crowed happily. He pushed the album towards Bella, who had been observing them in silence. "Mrs Smith, I need you to write down the names of anyone you recognize from the photographs prior to 1997." _He got the date as well. Damn._

"It won't be much" the widow said with doubt. She still picked up a piece of paper and a pencil.

"Better than nothing, trust me." Holmes offered one of his actually polite smiles, then turned to Joan with a look of rare intensity. "John, you need to go back to the archives. The first murder had taken place in 1997. Find it."

She groaned and got up. "Easy for you to say. Do you know how many murders there are in London every year?"

"153.3 on average" he answered without missing a beat.

"Show-off" Joan sighed. "Mrs Smith, thank you for your help. Don't hesitate to hit him with a pan if he doesn't behave."

Bella blinked at her in surprise, and finally smiled, a small, amused smile that talked of sympathy. "Thanks for your concern, Dr Watson."

**# #**

Joan meandered in the 1997 row, waiting for the archivist to be far enough to make her move. She shot a text to Blake "**Call me asap**" and sat on the floor, waiting. Four minutes later, her phone vibrated with an incoming call.

"Watson."

"What now?" Blake snapped in a loud whisper.

She repressed the urge to scream. "Holmes went to visit Smith's widow. He already connected the last three, and he knows that the first one was in 1997. We need to do something."

"Damn it!" They remained silent for a long moment before he spoke up in a calmer voice. "I'll do the fifth this week. You don't have to come, just keep me informed about the investigation."

"You don't have to do it alone. That's what we agreed on."

"You've done enough, John. I can finish it."

"And then what?" she asked out of the blue, surprised by her own question.

"Then they'll rest in peace, I suppose."

"What about us?"

Hemlick inhaled sharply and Joan just knew that he felt completely lost about the possibilities of a life without revenge. "I don't know, John."

The problem was, she didn't know either. "Just… don't make any hasty decisions, Blake. Promise me."

"Promise" he sighed. "I promise."

**# #**

Sherlock summoned her to the Lestrade's office around six-ish with a short text, and she meekly went up, thinking up excuses for the missing file. In the end, the made-up reasons didn't matter, as it was clear that there was no shortage of cases in 1997, and it was not humanly possible to check them all in three hours.

Joan dragged her feet through the open space, already hearing loud voices arguing in the office. "I can't just request a warrant! The case isn't even active!"

"Think of something! You keep nagging me about going through official channels!"

Sherlock and Greg were at a stand-off, shouting at each other from different sides of the cluttered desk. The ex-soldier watched them for a moment from the door, before stepping in. "What if we offer our consulting services?" she suggested calmly. "The family would probably be interested in solving the murders. And give us access to any information they may have."

The men stared at her in surprise, Lestrade with a hint of relief, Holmes with something akin to pride. "Good point, John" the detective said, sounding very much like a master praising his dog. Joan shrugged it off with practiced ease. "We'll do that. Lestrade, send me the addresses."

Before the DI could protest, Watson chimed in again: "We're not going door-to-door tonight. People would be tired, grumpy and uncooperative. Morning visits are better in that sense."

"But…"

She was way too exhausted to deal with the usual bossy nonsense. "These cases were cold for years. It can wait one night." Seeing the precursor signs of an epic temper tantrum, Joan amended: "Plus, it gives you time to prepare the questions and sort out the data already available."

It seemed to mollify the detective a little, not that Sherlock would admit anyone got a better idea than him for once. He huffed indignantly and stormed off, leaving Joan to apologize.

**# #**

Once in the flat, Sherlock fell on the couch without even bothering to take off his shoes and declared the living room a "silent zone" for the evening. Joan shrugged at his antics (she did that a lot recently) and went looking for any sort of food in their cupboards. It proved being an expedition among chemical hazards, with little to no bounty at the end (a couple of biscuits and a tin can of green beans). She spread her loot on the counter, trying to imagine a healthy meal out of it. Unfortunately, her imagination didn't go **that** far, and the doctor ended up munching a stale biscuit for dinner (the beans really didn't inspire her). The tea, at least, was excellent, if she said so herself.

The teaspoon made a subdued clinking noise while she absently stirred the honey into the beverage. It made easier to focus on the most pressing matter, namely _What the fuck am I going to do?_ The obvious answer was to destroy the evidence in the small box and get the hell out of the country. Change identities, go underground with Blake. It was only a matter of time before Sherlock found Falcone's file or linked the other victims to Joan's old neighbourhood. They had been so reckless in the first years of information gathering, too.

In the other hand, Joan was so tired. The righteous anger against the world withered years ago, and only the sense of duty towards her co-conspirators made the doctor move forward with the plans. That, and the memory of a funeral in 1987. It was something she could never forget.

**# #**

In the wee hours of the morning, Joan pulled out the small box from under the bed and stared at its contents. Her hands were crumpling a half-empty matchbox. In the end, she couldn't burn it. Perhaps, it was the small flower, last memory of a friend, that she couldn't destroy. Perhaps it was the barely repressed desire to be stopped. But she didn't have to make it easy. With a heavy sigh, Watson carefully folded the page with the five names, just above the last one, then ripped it off. This piece, she could burn without a hint of remorse.

**# #**

Patrick's parents were delighted that someone finally took interest in their son's case. When they heard about Arthur, they started chattering excitedly, not particularly distressed about the other man's death. It was just another step closer to the truth in their eyes.

Joan felt sick, being in their house, seeing framed pictures of the late Mr Stanley, but she had to keep up the pretence, she needed to follow the investigation as closely as possible if she was to survive this. "You alright?" her friend asked quietly while they moved upstairs to look at archived documents.

"Yeah" she answered in kind. "Just under the weather."

Luckily for her, Patrick's archives were just personal papers, medical records, nothing of importance. But just as they were leaving, Sherlock already starting a massive sulk, the mother called out to them. "I almost forgot!" Joan had that awful sinking feeling that announced danger. "Patrick had a small storage unit. We have no place to keep its contents here, but we still pay for it. Do you need to see it?"

Holmes grinned brightly. "Of course!"

**# #**

They went to the unit with Stanley's parents, took all the files and albums stored there with promises of returning them as soon as possible, and grabbed a cab back to Baker Street. Sherlock was positively vibrating with excitement. _Finally, a lead! _His hands were itching to tear into the yellowed papers immediately, but he knew a moving car was hardly the appropriate environment for a thorough evidence analysis. It didn't stop him from compiling test protocols in his head.

A dull thump indicated Joan throwing her head against the head-rest. The detective glanced at his blogger with a hint of worry. _Fact:__ John looks pale. __Fact:__ John didn't eat much since yesterday noon. __Fact:__ John is more liable to transport than me (ugh)._ _Conclusion:__ John is hungry and will feel better after lunch. _When they finally got to the flat, he magnanimously asked about getting a take-away. Watson gave him an odd look, but phoned the delivery service nonetheless.

Feeling rather proud of himself, Sherlock started the methodical dissection of the collected evidence. Papers sprawled on the floor with him sitting cross-legged in the middle of the chaos, the detective didn't pay attention to anything else, until Joan prodded him to eat at least a couple of bites. How and when the plate appeared by his side, he didn't know. He reluctantly complied, eyes still glued to the page filled with a simplistic binary code. It was shaping out to be a list of names and dates, and he needed to run them through NSY database. And maybe some international ones.

It took Sherlock several minutes to notice that his vision was going in and out of focus, blurring at the sides. _When was my last sleep?_ \- was his first irritated thought. He blinked to dispel the dizziness, but it suddenly became difficult to make the eyelids go back up. A slight tingle at the end of his fingertips alerted the brain to the drugs. _Shit. The food. Who? Why?_ The sluggishness was invading the thought process, and he focused all the energy into opening his eyes again. To his great surprise, he was already face down on the floor, his breath raising slightly the nearby papers.

Thinking was getting harder. _Sedatives, must be. Food… Food. John ate too. Where's John?_

"Sherlock?" someone called softly through the haze of drugged fog. "Can you hear me?" Strong hands turned him face up, and he stared blurrily at the ceiling. _Oh, that's where that glue capsule went…_ Joan's face floated above. _She isn't drugged. Why?_ "It's alright. You'll be alright." _Why?_ Her warm touch ghosted his throat, checking for vitals. "It'll wear off soon." Sherlock struggled to stay conscious, only marginally aware of what was happening. The doctor lifted his head, slipping a pillow under it. "Now sleep" she advised, throwing a blanket over his prone form.

Before he finally lost the fight to stay awake, Sherlock heard her steps going upstairs with a slight limp.

**# #**

Joan threw a few necessities and a wad of cash she saved up for years in the backpack. She typed a quick text to Mycroft ("**He'll be fine.**") set to be sent in an hour and left her phone and her gun on the desk, along with a scribbled "**Sorry**" on a random receipt.

_I'm sorry_, she thought again, climbing out of the window on the fire escape, then to the roof. _I'm really sorry._ She ran and jumped for a good twenty minutes before feeling safe enough to get down on the streets. Joan rushed into the first working phone booth she saw, dialling Blake's number.

As soon as he picked up, she fired: "They found Alistair's archive."

"Fuck!"

But they had no time to commiserate. "You need to disappear."

"How?! Where are you?"

"I left just now. Going to Edgware, we can regroup there."

"Regr… Damn, I keep forgetting you're military." He seemed to calm down a little. "I need an hour to arrange everything, then I'll join you in Edgware."

"Good. See you then."

"See you, John."

**# #**

When Mycroft received the text from Joan Watson, he frowned. "**What has he done now?**" he wrote back. But there was no response, which was unusual for the good doctor. He phoned his surveillance team who reported nothing suspicious at Baker Street. But Joan was not returning the calls. Dismissing the forbidding feeling creeping up in his stomach, the older Holmes stood up and grabbed his umbrella. "Anthea, my car immediately, please."

**# #**

Sherlock woke up to a shocked gasp. Well, 'woke up' would be an exaggeration. He opened his eyes and the eyelids felt so heavy, he closed them again. "Sherlock?!" he heard a man exclaim and someone shook him rather violently.

"Piss off…" he mumbled, and the man sighed in relief.

"What happened here?"

"Nuthin."

"You're sleeping. It's not nothing."

"Drugs" Sherlock finally shared with a frown.

"Sherlock…" the voice started to sound utterly disappointed and world-weary.

"Not me" he added.

It made the other man pause. "Then who?"

Sherlock made a colossal effort to crack one eye open. He was oddly comfortable on the floor, under the warm blanket. "Think it's John." The statement did not trigger the expected feeling of deep betrayal. _Am I in shock? No, there is something else…_

Mycroft's face twisted into a grimace. "John? Are you sure?"

"It was in the food" Sherlock offered instead of an explanation.

Fortunately, the older Holmes was more than able to catch on underlying statements. "Interesting." He gestured at someone who stood by the door and got up from the kneeling position at his brother's side. "Can you stand?"

Sherlock critically assessed his current condition. _No soreness. Slight dizziness. Thought capacity at 97.3%. Mobility at 86.8%._ "Yes." He sat up brusquely with a groan, abdominal muscles twinging with pain. "Where's she?"

"No sign of Dr Watson in the building or neighbourhood, sir" reported Mycroft's shadow from the staircase. Holmeses looked at each other with an identical calculating glint in their eyes.

"Phone?" Mycroft asked dispassionately.

"In her room, sir."

With another effort and (more importantly) without help, Sherlock got up, leaving the comfy blanket in a messed tangle on the floor. "Let's go."

The phone was, indeed, in her room. As well as the shortest apology note in the world, written in a hurry with a simple ballpoint pen. The inclination of the letters and the slightly longer tail of the "y" told Sherlock that the apology was surprisingly sincere. _What is she sorry for? Drugging me? Leaving? Something else?_

"It was a rash decision" the older Holmes commented from the door. He was leaning against the doorframe, umbrella still in hand. His eyes swept the room with laser precision. "Something spooked her."

"But we only have this case going…" Sherlock trailed off, trying to restore the mental files with Joan's exact reactions to all milestones in the case. He usually archived them away without analysing too deep, but in retrospect, it had been a mistake. "Odd. Why would she be involved in this?"

"The question, brother mine, should be 'how', not 'why'."

"All the same" his comeback lacked the usual bite. "If her objective was to hinder my investigation, she could have acted much earlier."

"She did not want to do this" his brother supplied. "Drugging you. Something forced her hand."_ Ah, I see. Her care __**was**__ genuine. _"She took all precautions to make sure you were not harmed." _Our friendship is real._

"I need to review the evidence again."

**# #**

Working together with Mycroft was highly uncomfortable, but scarily efficient. It took them two hours to go through the coded archives of Patrick Stanley, while governmental minions were busy with groundwork. In the end, their discoveries boiled down to three facts:

One – Joan Watson had been in London during all four murders. Which, per se, wasn't proof of her involvement.

However, two – all three victims had lived in the three-miles radius from Joan in the late eighties. Which was getting a little too much for a mere coincidence.

And more disturbingly, three – Patrick Stanley had filed and securely stored encrypted names of missing children and young adults, some of whom had been found dead years after their disappearance, as well as people suspected of involvement in human trafficking.

They also found several photos of young people, most of them barely out of their teens. Several had indeed gone missing during the nineties. One picture featured a zoomed up shot of Joan Watson, painfully young (_eighteen or nineteen years-old_) and unscarred, leaning towards someone on her right with an intense look. She wore glasses (_her eyesight is perfect, this ought to be fake, a disguise_) and her hair was the longest either Holmes had ever seen it (_she used to wear braids, how unexpected_). But it was obvious now that the good doctor had a connexion to the case.

"Something's missing" Sherlock mused out loud. He managed to keep any feeling of anxiety at bay, mainly thanks to his brother's presence, but these details made him seriously worry for Joan's safety. And given the way she left, it was not unfounded.

"My people are working on connecting Joan to any of the victims" Mycroft replied while leafing through rental contract dated from 1985.

"That'll take ages!" The younger man fell back on the floor, on the conveniently placed pillow. Something kept nagging at him, a small detail, something recent, very recent… _Is it before John left? There was this limp, I remember it. No. The documents? No. It was in the room. Something small. New. _"The box" he suddenly sat up. "It wasn't there before." Finding new reserves of energy, he jumped up and sprinted upstairs.

There was indeed a small metal box under Joan's bed, that had not been there during his last cursory check-up of the place. The lock was there in name only. By the time the older Holmes came into the room, the contents of the mysterious box were scattered on the woollen afghan and the consulting detective was looming over them with a deep frown.

Sherlock gingerly picked up the page that had been torn from a kid's notepad. It was ominously titled "Revenge Pact", letters clearly written with great care, even using a ruler. It had been written by a boy. Glancing back at his brother first, Sherlock read the terms of the pact out loud, stopping only to decipher the child's scrawl.

"We swear upon our lives to track and hunt the people responsible for the death of Hannah Elizabeth Martin. We will find them. We will make them understand what she went through and make them pay. We will kill them."

The thing was dated from November 1st, 1987 and signed with three names. "H. E. Martin, J. H. Watson, B. S. Hemlick." He brought the paper at the eye level, examining the ink. "The text had been written by the Martin boy. Then they signed in blood."

"1987… John would have been eleven" Mycroft commented. "Pretty serious commitment for someone that age." Their eyes were drawn to the old photo of four children, two boys and two girls, grinning around a camp fire. One of them was unmistakably Joan, short hair bleached by sun, smile untouched yet by the desert. She had her arm around the shoulders of a tall boy with legs of a frequent runner. The other two kids were clearly siblings, the girl younger than the rest of the group by two or three years. There were two other photos of them, at the beach and in someone's backyard. They looked inseparable.

"Hannah Elizabeth Martin, born in 1979" said Anthea from the doorway, reading from her phone. "Disappeared in August 1987 and found dead in October 1987 with clear signs of torture. Suspected victim of an unidentified serial killer. Survived at the time by both parents and an older brother, one Henry Edward Martin. The brother had passed away from an untreated medical condition in 2010."

"What about Hemlick?" Sherlock inquired softly.

"Blake Stephen Hemlick, alleged best friend of Henry Martin."

"Locate him" Mycroft ordered, picking up the worn diary.

"Already on it, sir."

As Mycroft leafed through the diary, that dated from late eighties, a piece of paper fell from it. Sherlock swiftly picked it up and froze at the sight of the names. Mycroft glanced at it before commenting sarcastically: "I presume they found them."

"Indeed." The younger brother noted the first name – Alistair Falcone – and swore under his breath. _She knew what to look for all along. There is still a chance she did not destroy the file, though._ Then he ran a finger over the lower edge of the list. "It had been torn recently. There are more names."

"Sir?" Anthea stepped inside. "Blake Hemlick disappeared from his work place three hours ago and had not been located yet."

"Upgrade to level four. Also, find everything we have on Alistair Falcone."

"Yes, sir."

Mycroft turned towards a fuming Sherlock. "Read this" he put the diary into the younger man's hands. "I will supervise the search. We can think of a strategy once we have all the elements."

Sherlock looked like he wanted to protest, but quickly swallowed back the insults. It was a reasonable suggestion. He needed more data. He could not find Joan without it.

**# #**

They sat side by side on the dusty floor under the condemned window in a dilapidated two-stories house, still shaky from the adrenaline rush and the shock of being so close to being found out. Blake was still wearing his suit, blue tie askew. Joan untied the tight laces of her combat boots and slumped against the mouldy wall. Silence stretched between them, cold and cruel.

"Why are we doing this, Blake?" she finally asked, not even looking at him.

He didn't move before responding in a dead voice: "We swore on our lives."

"We were stupid kids."

"Hannah died. Henry died."

"Exactly. But we're alive. What about us? About our lives?" She chanced a glance in Blake's direction, but he remained still as a statue.

"Do you regret it?" he asked quietly.

Joan turned back to observing the cracks in the ceiling. "Probably not. But I think Alistair was enough. The others would have lived in fear forever. But we kept going for Henry…"

"They were moving on!" Blake straightened up in sudden fury, slamming a fist against the wooden floor. "Building their lives, being fucking happy! While Henry…"

"I know!" she responded with a pained grimace. "But… was it really the best we could do? We could have gotten Henry help, real help, made him listen! I'm a bloody doctor and I let him lie to me about his health. He would have been alive now… We could have taken them to trial. Anything. Anything at all."

Blake looked at her with eyes so full of pity she thought they became a mirror. "We can't stop now, John" he said, sagging back down.

"I know." She felt tears burning behind her own eyes. "But I wish we could be stopped."

**# #**

The diary proved to be an intriguing insight into teenage Joan's life. She had kept it from 1987 to 1994, writing short sentences for every other day. For longer entries, she glued folded sheets between pages, making the book look swollen and bulky, like it was overflowing.

First there were notes about Hannah's disappearance, and the search. "**September 21****st****, 1987. Still nothing. Henry hadn't eaten in days. Mrs Martin doesn't leave the bedroom. I'm scared. What can I do for them? I hate it.**" Then blurred lines on days after the discovery of the body. "**October 20****th****, 1987. The funeral was beautiful and awful. She was just a kid. Who could do that?**"

On the day of the pact, Joan simply wrote "**Day of the Dead**", without mentioning the contract three kids signed with their own blood.

There were several months of short entries about dealing with grief and seeing the Martin couple fall apart, and parents trying to make them move on. Henry, as described between the neat lines, became steadily obsessed with his sister's death, which was both worrying and normal for a pre-teen going through such trauma. Blake Hemlick, the third kid involved in the revenge pact, was barely mentioned aside from his presence at the Martin's house. The first big folded sheet was the summary of the police case regarding Hannah's death. _How on earth did she get this information? _The entry on April 9th, 1988, quickly solved the mystery: "**Blake and I hid in the broom closet in the police station, and sneaked into the detective's office at night. We copied all the files.**"

He stopped to glance at the old photo again. Blake Hemlick had been a lanky athlete-type child. Judging by his social media profile, he remained fairly active and in shape. The dirty blond hair darkened with age to a dull brown. He looked rather shy as a pre-teen, awkward even in the company of his close friends. This uneasiness carried on to the adulthood but had remained well-hidden in slightly protective postures and tense smiles. He looked like a lion too scared to step out of an open cage, just because the world beyond it was unknown.

There was nothing of importance for long months after that, just small comments on schoolmates (with a hint of jealousy on their ignorance of all things dead and grieving) and family (with a lot of frustration in regard to Harriet and her shenanigans). At the end of 1988, on November 1st, she wrote "**Henry is scary.**" There was also a half-sheet glued into the pages, with diagrams and names, and a spotty timeline of Hannah's disappearance. For twelve-years-olds without access to modern technology, they had been rather thorough in their hypothesis and data collection. Mildly impressed by their work, Sherlock continued his reading, not noticing that it was well past midnight.

**# #**

Blake changed into sweat pants and went to the nearby store to buy some supplies. Meanwhile, Joan cleaned up the bathroom and the couch as much as humanly possible and started tinkering with the water pump without much conviction. The old house still had an antediluvian generator huffing and puffing in the basement. It made her wonder how Mrs Martin never noticed the small fees coming out of her bank accounts. Henry had set up the contracts and the automatic payments about ten years ago, and he probably took care of his parents' finances too.

"John?" She startled at the voice calling from the entrance. For a second, she thought it was Sherlock, but no, the voice was not deep enough.

"Down here!"

"What are you doing?" Blake asked after locating her near the pump, covered in dust and rust, a torch light stuck under her chin.

"Trying to get us running water."

"You know how to operate that thing?" Having spent most of his life in a big city, he never quite took to repairing things by himself, always relying on quick services.

Joan, on the other hand, had to pick up various skills on remote military bases. "Yeah, not that different from what we had in Sierra Leone. We spent more time maintaining it than using it, but yeah…"

"Neat." He stepped closer and took the torch from her. "I'll hold that for you."

"Ta." The work went faster now that she didn't have to perform wonders of contortionism to get some light. "Ok" she sighed once the machine started quietly rumbling. "The pressure won't be great, but it's better than nothing."

"Neat" Blake repeated again, dropping the light. The silence stretched again.

Joan couldn't bear it anymore. "Let's eat something."

**# #**

"**November 1****st****, 1990. Henry punched a mirror. We cleaned it up before Mrs Martin came home, but it'll be difficult to explain. I've seen Blake's wrists. They're both falling apart. Why aren't I?**"

"**February 14****th****, 1991. Chris asked me out. I laughed it off. I can't start **_**dating**_** now, I must look after Henry and Blake. I need to keep them going.**"

"**February 15****th****, 1991.** **Harry found out about Chris. She's annoying.**"

"**April 1****st****, 1991. Henry broke down crying again. Blake hugged him so tight. He loves Henry. But they don't know. I'm confused.**"

"**December 24****th****, 1991. I miss Hannah. She liked Christmas so much. I bought a gift for her again. Will leave it at the grave tomorrow. I miss her. Whoever did this to her, I'll make them pay. I hate them. I hate them so bad.**"

"**November 1****st****, 1992. Henry's drinking too much. It's killing Blake, watching him get hurt like that. I'm trying to help, I really am. Hannah, tell me, is this not enough?**"

Sherlock put down the diary and winced at the soreness of his neck. The kids had not made big progress in the investigation for a couple of years, and there was just too much teenage drama unfolding. While he was absolutely not interested in the details of their woes (he had quite enough of his own at the time), he was curious about Joan. These years were formative to her personality, and without them, she would not be the person he met at Bart's, the friend he came to deeply respect.

The more he read, the more he confirmed his initial conclusion. Joan had never faked anything in his presence. All frowns and all smiles were genuine. It's just that… he had missed a lot of subtext, another layer to her puzzle.

However, she was probably a murderer. _Most likely._ Based on the thoughts she recorded in her teenage years, the future doctor had a deep-seated hatred towards the people responsible for little Hannah's death. _Unsurprising._ Her opinion on how to deal with these people, however, seemed to oscillate between fair trial and bloody murder. _Once again, not unexpected for the situation. _Perhaps, her doubts persisted in the adult years. It felt very odd to consider Joan, the steady, reliable presence, whose moral compass had been a certainty from day one, as a child lost in impossible choices.

_She killed them in the end. _Sherlock looked back at the crumpled pages. _Maybe not. I should keep reading._

**# #**

They slept huddled on the couch, waking up every hour or so from the cold and the cars honking in the distance. It was strangely reminiscent of the nights they spent with Henry in the basement, planning, plotting, trying to make sense of an unthinkable horror and falling asleep on the blanket, clinging to each other for warmth and reassurance. Despite the loss that broke them, these were innocent days.

As the dawn spilled red light through the dirty window, they shuffled towards the kitchen. Blake prepared two cups of soluble coffee. It tasted horrible, they had no milk or sugar, but they gulped it down nonetheless. Joan opened a bag of cheap biscuits and they split them evenly.

"Blake…" the doctor started suddenly. "Do you still love him?" She wasn't sure why she asked it now, after all these years. She wasn't even sure if Blake himself put words on his feelings. But she really needed to know.

He looked stunned for a second, then his face crumpled into such a painful grimace that Joan instantly regretted asking. "Always" he breathed out. "Always…" And God, it was heart-breaking to watch. Feeling herself crumbling under guilt and pity, Watson got up, went around the cracked kitchen table and hugged Blake. It was the only comfort she could offer to the man who watched the love of his life sink into a very dark place with no means to pull him out, and then burn from a preventable illness. And never say anything. Ever.

"I'm so sorry" she murmured while he broke into dry sobs on her shoulder. "I am so, so sorry, Blake."

**# #**

"**October 29****th****, 1994. We know who ran the temporary keeping place. We'll have to check all her relatives and contacts, one of them must be the leader. We'll get them. I swear to all gods, we'll get them all.**"

The final page ended with that ominous promise. After seven years of investigation, the kids managed to unearth more information than the police. They identified the two men directly responsible for snatching Hannah off the street, and the woman who hid the child in her house. As they grew older, they had more means at their disposal, and they were steadily working on finding the organizer of the kidnapping, the one who actually killed the girl.

They had not yet found the man in 1994, but judging by the list found in Joan's box, it was Alistair Falcone, killed in 1997. Nephew of Roberta McDougal.

Sherlock closed the journal and pressed both hands on his eyes. It felt like someone poured sand over on his eyeballs. _They killed Falcone. They killed the retainer and the kidnappers. Who else? Who else are they planning to eliminate?_

**# #**

Mycroft's PA appeared at his doorstep with a steaming cup of coffee (black, two sugars) around 7 in the morning. Sherlock greeted her with his customary glare but accepted the coffee nonetheless. "Mr Holmes asks if you'd be willing to accompany him" the woman said without looking up from the phone.

The way it was formulated grated on the younger Holmes' nerves. It was as if he had a choice in the matter. But if he wanted to find Joan and to stop this revenge idiocy, there was only one option – Mycroft.

"Give me fifteen minutes" he stated before burning his throat with scalding coffee in one big gulp and disappearing in his room.

**# #**

"Where are we?" he finally asked when Mycroft rang the bell of a condo with the tip of his umbrella. The older brother arched a condescending eyebrow.

"Whozzat?" slurred a female voice behind the door. _He wouldn't. He bloody wouldn't._

"We need to talk to you about your sister, Miss Watson" Mycroft said loudly. _Harriet. Just brilliant…_

The lock clicked and the oldest Watson sibling peeked cautiously through the narrow opening. "Joan?" Then she noticed Sherlock and the door flew immediately wide open. "What happened? What have you done?" She glared heatedly at them (especially at Sherlock).

"Why does everyone assume I'm the one causing trouble?" he asked petulantly at large.

"Because you usually do" both Harriet and Mycroft responded in unison, immediately grimacing at the cheesiness of it.

"What happened?" Watson repeated the question to pass the awkwardness.

Mycroft, always in control, took the lead. "John took off, rather dramatically, last night. We assume it has something to do with her childhood friends, and we hope you will be able to help us fill the gaps in our knowledge."

The woman was not impressed by the big words. She crossed her arms and glared at them, not budging from her door. "Why would it be any of your business? She is an adult. She can come and go without reporting to you people."

"She might put herself in danger" Mycroft offered.

"She does that all the time."

"She drugged Sherlock before disappearing."

"Good for her." Clearly, Harriet was not eager to help. Mycroft was hitting a wall with her dry comebacks, and it made Sherlock chuckle despite the gravity of their situation. "You had it coming" she threw at the detective.

"Perhaps" he forced himself to admit to everyone's great surprise. "However, she needs help right now. We believe it has something to do with the death of Hannah Martin."

That made her pause. "Little Hannah. Yes, that was horrible…" She glared at them again, before finally dropping her hands. "Fine. Come in."

Her living space was unexpectedly tidy. The lack of alcohol or empty glasses in the living room or the open kitchen pointed to another attempt at sobriety. Though, the dark circles under her eyes implied it was not an easy road. "Tea?" Harriet asked, already pulling the mugs and setting up the kettle. Apparently, compulsive tea-making was a Watson family trait.

They stood in silence, watching her prepare the beverage, before she glanced at them in confusion. "Sit down" she said in the same tone one'd use to say _You morons._

Holmes brothers exchanged an eyeroll but sited themselves on opposite chairs. Watson brought them their mugs and returned with her own tea soon after. Plopping on the large sofa, she sipped the hot drink with gusto. After waiting for them to take a sip as well, Harriet ordered in a no-nonsense voice: "Explain."

Mycroft and Sherlock had a mute conversation that held along the lines of _You do it!_ In the end, the older brother sighed heavily and started talking. "John had been implicated in the suspicious deaths of persons involved in Hannah Martin's death. Sherlock stumbled on this case by chance, and she chose to disappear when he came close to a breakthrough. It is possible she might attempt something… stupid."

"Damn" Harriet lowered the mug to her lap. "That, she might. Have you found the other guy? What's his name… Blake?"

"He disappeared at the same time and had not been located yet."

"Damn" she repeated, eyes widening.

"What can you tell us about Blake? About Martin family?" Sherlock butted in.

"Johnny was super close with Martin kids, both of them. Blake was always hanging out with them too" she shrugged. "The boys went to school together with Joan. I wasn't really interested in them at the time. Was already too old."

"You were thirteen" Sherlock pointed out sceptically.

"And they were eleven at best" Harriet huffed. "At that age, one year is like a century."

He put that statement aside to process later on. "What about Hannah?"

"She adored her brother. Followed him like a puppy. When she went missing, we all searched for her. It was really scary. No one went outside anymore." She closed her eyes in remembrance. "Then they found her dead, and it was even worse. Police everywhere, people crying randomly. We were all terrified."

"And John?"

The older Watson let out a humourless laugh. "Johnny was brave. She tried to hold everyone together, like glue. And for some time, it even worked."

"Meaning?"

"Henry, the brother, was falling apart. Even I could see that. He was angry, and sad, and guilty. It was too much for the kid. Blake was clueless, but tried his best, the poor guy. And then, there was Johnny, talking them out of stupid shit, calming them down after a fight, getting them to eat. Sometimes, I think these two survived until adulthood only thanks to my sis."

"What about the parents?" Mycroft asked carefully.

"The Martins? They disintegrated. Literally. They were painful to watch. Never really smiled again. The father died in 2001, if I remember correctly…"

_2001\. When Roberta McDougal died._ "Do you…" Sherlock paused because his throat was suddenly very dry. "Do you remember anything, anything odd happening in 1997, that would involve John, Henry or Blake?"

Harriet frowned, genuinely trying to remember. "I'm not sure if it was 1997… but around that time, yeah. Johnny turned up at the family dinner covered in bruises, Dad was livid. She said she played rugby with her friends, but it really looked like someone beat her up, maybe even the same day. I tried to make her talk, but she laughed it off. Blake came to pick her up that night. I remember, because I always thought he was in the closet for Henry but the way he was all gentlemanly with Johnny that night, it made me reconsider."

Sherlock's eyebrow twitched. "Gentlemanly? How's that?"

"You know, gave her his coat, helped her get in the passenger seat" Harriet smirked knowingly. "All the jazz." _Or maybe he was feeling guilty, because John had been injured in their first attempt at exacting revenge._

Mycroft seemed to have the same thought, as he pulled his phone out and sent a long string of instructions to someone. "Do you have any idea where they might have gone now?"

Harriet shrugged helplessly. "I hardly have an idea of where Joan is on regular basis, let alone when she's trying to hide."

**# #**

The older Watson had nothing more to offer in lieu of information, and they left soon after. "That was enlightening" Mycroft drawled once they were seated in the moving car.

"That was useless" Sherlock huffed, sagging down in his seat.

"I wouldn't say so. We can now confirm Henry Martin as the driving force behind the murders."

The detective glanced at his brother, who watched the road with such indifference, it made the younger brother want to punch him. _Maybe there's something here…_ "His cause of death?"

"Renal failure coupled with pancreatic cancer."

"Damn" he cringed. It sounded painful.

It was still morning in London, and the traffic was rather tame, just after the rush hour. Sherlock watched the cars passing them by in the opposite lane for a couple of minutes before voicing his concerns. "Do you believe they will try to finish the kill list, now that Henry's gone? Or will they just disappear?"

"They won't be able to leave the country" Mycroft 'reassured' him. "My assistant had searched Hemlick's apartment" he continued unfazed. "The man was ridden with guilt regarding Henry Martin's death. There are numerous unsent letters on his laptop."

Sherlock perked up. "Anything of importance?"

"Declarations of love and loyalty, and pleas to take care of his health. He had been writing them for years, perhaps like a diary. After Martin passed, most of the texts turned into rants, begging for forgiveness and promising to bring peace. The grief made him highly unstable."

"So he will want to finish the job." _It is a start._

Mycroft finally turned his cold gaze on him. "You should know that Hemlick does not plan to survive this. He appears apologetic towards Joan, but he will not go out of his way to preserve her."

Sherlock closed his eyes briefly, repressing an unbidden shiver running down his spine. "She can take care of herself." The unsettling feeling did not leave. He closed his eyes again and tried to remember more details about the last interaction with Joan, if only to avoid considering all the possible outcomes. _You'll be alright._ "She could have destroyed the evidence" he finally mused out loud. "We have enough fire accelerants and acids at home. She could have made it impossible to connect the Martin case to the murders." _I would have found it eventually, though. But not fast enough. _"She wants to be stopped, doesn't she?"

Mycroft's voice was uncharacteristically soft. "Perhaps."

**# #**

Joan looked forlornly at her reflection. _And it just started to grow longer, _she sighed internally before giving one last brush to the shortened and dyed hair. Her natural greying blond colour was gone, and instead the former soldier sported a short cut of dark chestnut hair. She also put on brown contact lenses, which made her eyes water, and pushed small pads inside her cheeks to change the face contours.

It was not much, but enough to not be recognized as Joan Watson on first sight. It wouldn't fool a Holmes, not for long. However, it was enough for what they planned.

Blake, barely recognizable with a buzz cut and stubble, knocked on the open door. There was a time where Joan was the tallest of their group. Now, he towered a good foot over her. "Ready?" His gaze was feverish, torn between excitement and fear.

"Yeah."

**# #**

She watched him fidget with the hem of his shirt while the train brought them back to London. _I should have done something sooner… But I hated these people so badly. I don't know anymore. I just don't know. _Joan had known for some time now that killing in revenge would not bring salvation. But it seemed like the only thing that kept Henry alive for years, and she could not refuse him this last straw. Blake… Blake had melted into Henry's view of the world with reckless abandon. Whatever the man said, Hemlick would agree. Joan tried to counterbalance their blood-lust so many times, failing, failing and failing. Or maybe she never tried enough. They had been dealing with this nightmare for decades now, and it seemed so normal in the beginning. There were bad guys, and they were going to punish them. _How did it get so out of hand?_

_I am an accomplice to four murders_, Joan acknowledged to herself, watching her reflection in the dirty window. _And I'm not really sorry. But it had no meaning now. Not anymore. And maybe, it never had one._

Once they arrived at St Pancras, her companion went into a small shop to grab some supplies. While he was stuck in the queue, Joan flagged down a young woman who had been loitering under the arrival's board. "Sorry, miss? Can I borrow your phone, just for a text? I have no battery on mine, and my cousin is waiting for my message." The woman eyed her with evident suspicion but ended up agreeing. She quickly typed "**Leila Dime. JW**" and sent it to Sherlock's number. With a cheery "Thank you!", the blogger retreated into the crowd.

**# #**

"What the…" Sherlock stared at the text, thoroughly confused.

"Wrong number?" Mycroft's PA suggested mockingly.

"Shut up" he snapped, already dialling back.

"Yeah?" answered an unknown female.

"You just sent me a text."

"Wasn't me" the woman said. Judging by the background noise, she was at a train station.

He tried not to lose patience entirely. "Really?"

"Yeah, your cousin borrowed my phone for the text."

"My **cousin**?!"

"Yeees" she started to get irritated.

"What did she look like? Where is she?"

"Listen, man…"

"It's **important**!"

"Dunno" the woman surrendered. "Short, dark hair, she was dressed for a hike. Said her battery died."

_Dark hair? Not John then. But who else would it be? _"Where is she now?"

"Dunno" she repeated. "Do you know how many people there are at St Pancras?"

He disconnected without adding anything. "They are in disguise" Sherlock announced to the room, catching Mycroft's attention. "They're going to act soon."

**# #**

They stayed on the bench watching Leila's house for a couple of hours. Joan silently prayed that police would arrive and stop them right then and there, but the neighbourhood remained excruciatingly calm. "She's alone now" Blake stated. She felt like time slowed down and they were walking through jelly. _Everyone thought I was Sherlock's moral compass. But in truth, he was keeping me from falling into pieces._

Her finger was pressing the doorbell, and she had no recollection of getting to the door of the small townhouse. "Yes?" Leila Dime opened the door with a polite smile.

"Good day, Ma'am" Blake started in his best door-to-door salesman voice. "We are collecting old clothes, shoes or toys for homeless families. Would you be willing to donate?"

"Oh" - her smile grew warmer – "Of course! Come on in, I was just thinking of dropping my old things off at a charity."

At the time, _ages ago_, they had identified Miss Dime as Alistair Falcone's live-in girlfriend. She had been very much informed about her man's business, as the torture and killing had most likely taken place in the basement of their house. She had been just short of thirty at the time of Hannah's murder. Now that Joan looked around the small living room, with airy curtains and light furniture from a famous Swedish brand, she caught herself thinking _This woman is alone._ There were no photos of her family or friends, or mementos from vacations, or anything personal, really. At the ripe age of fifty-four, Leila Dime had no close friends and no fond memories. She was still very thin, almost sickly so, but wore very wide shirts and bulky pants.

A realization started forming at the back of Joan's mind.

Leila came back into the room. "I have some boxes in the back, do you want to sort through now?" Before Joan could stop him, Blake grabbed Leila's arm in an iron grip and pushed her against the wall, pressing a hunting knife under the throat. "Oh my god!" the woman gasped in shock.

"Do you remember Hannah?" he hissed menacingly.

"Who?!"

"You don't?!" He shook her slightly, making the large clothes flail around her small frame, and Joan's eyes caught on something.

"Blake" she called out in a dead voice.

He didn't listen, continuing to work himself up to a rage. "Hannah Martin, you don't remember her?"

Leila was crying silent tears. "Blake" Joan tried again, this time putting a calming hand on his shoulder. Hemlick grunted unintelligibly but stopped for a second. The doctor reached out and lifted Leila's shirt over the stomach, revealing numerous small round scars. _Cigarettes._ "You were a prisoner too" she said, looking the crying woman straight in the eyes. "You had to survive, and so you let them murder children."

Blake jerked back, knife dropping to the ground, while Miss Dime collapsed on the ground with an agonizing wail. "Please, I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I remember them, all of them, see!" To their mute horror, she tore off her shirt and turned her back to them.

_Oh my god._ Joan stumbled back until her knees hit a low table and she sat heavily on it, tears burning at her eyes. _Oh my god._ Blake froze in place, but his breathing became louder and louder, to the point of hyperventilating.

On Leila's back, there were names. Dozens of names tattooed at different times and by different artists. Hannah Martin was one of them.

They stared for ages, the silence interrupted only by Leila's breathless sobs. _This guilt. I can't even start to imagine what she's gone through… _Somehow, Joan managed to gather enough strength to get up and kneel by the poor woman. "Dress up" she ordered gently. "Dress up and get up. We're sorry."

Their last victim-to-be cautiously looked up, trembling. For a second, it could have been alright. It could have been over. Then Leila's eyes widened in fear and something smacked Joan in the right temple with the loudest thump.

"Wh…" she fell on one knee, vision swimming. Through the blood trickling from her hairline, she saw her childhood friend holding a piece of a shattered vase. "Blake…?" She didn't have time to process more as he hit her again and the world went black.

**# #**

The headache was monstrous. Joan winced and brought a hand to her forehead, probing it gingerly. The drying blood stuck to the fingertips. _Ouch. _She tried opening her eyes, and surprisingly it worked. The white ceiling stared back at her dispassionately. Despite having been bashed in the head, she was laying on something soft. _Strange._ Something was stuck in her mouth, and she pushed with her tongue before messily spitting out the pads used to alter the face lines.

Finally, her brain caught up on the surrounding noises. Someone was whimpering quietly, while someone else was pacing and muttering. The muscles in her neck tweaked painfully as Joan turned her head to watch. In the few minutes she was out, Blake had managed to tie Leila to a wooden chair with a rope (_did we bring a rope with us? did he plan all this?_) and push aside some bookcases, for whatever reason. He looked like a madman, sweating, gesturing wildly and muttering incoherent phrases that sounded like apologies.

"Blake?" Joan called as loudly as she could. He didn't hear. _I have a concussion, definitely. I should lie down and wait for reinforcements. _Telling her inner doctor to shut up, she pushed herself into a sitting position. _Oh, he put me on a sofa. How nice. _"Blake. What the hell are you doing?" _And what is that smell?_

The man finally stopped his pacing, and turned to look at her, really look. His eyes were blazing with inexplicable hope. "Once she's dead" he started in a breathless voice, "Henry will be in peace. He will be alright."

_He's insane_, Joan thought with numbing clarity. _He's gone insane with grief._ "Blake." She forced her legs to the floor, but didn't get up yet, black spots dancing in her field of view. "Look at her, Blake." He deigned to glance at the captive woman, who had gone quiet now. "She had been abused, threatened. She could have done nothing to save Hannah." Blake shook his head vehemently. "Just look! She's dying of guilt. We can't put her through the same thing as the others. It isn't right."

"But he needs it!"

"He's dead!" she yelled, disregarding how painful it was right now. "Henry's dead, Blake! Hannah's dead! But we're not. You're alive." He paled significantly at the outburst and stumbled back. Joan hoisted herself up and took a step closer to him, wobbling slightly. "It's enough. We've done enough. It will not bring them back. And I'm tired of burying friends."

He stared at her blankly for the longest second before the mad hope shattered into a mask of utter despair. A low groan, between a scream and a sob, filled the silence, and Hemlick slid down a wall, curling into a ball. He started to rock to the sound of quiet "no, no, no"s.

_I am so sorry. But you weren't going to make it better. _Joan watched him with pity. If her loved one died like Henry did, she couldn't imagine what she'd do. _I'm sorry._

Once she made sure that her unfortunate friend wasn't going anywhere, the doctor staggered towards Leila. The rope was rather loose, and she managed to undo it in just a minute. The woman was sobbing silently. "Come on" Joan cajoled her to get up and threw a blanket over her shoulders. "Let's get you out."

"I'm sorry…" Miss Dime whispered as they moved towards the entrance.

"No. I am. You did not deserve any of this." Joan missed a step and had to take lean on the nearest cabinet in the hallway. "Go" she waved at Leila. "Call the police, the ambulance. We'll be here."

The older woman gave a slow nod, as if unsure of the reality of it all, and took a cautious step back. At this moment, they both heard a loud clatter in the living room and a wordless snarl of rage. _Shit._ "Go!" she yelled at Leila and moved to block the path towards her retreat.

Blake came barrelling at her with all the anger accumulated during the years. Joan met him with a knee to the stomach. It made him heave and step back, giving the ex-soldier time to regain ground. "Stop it!" she tried to reason with him.

The front door opened and closed, Leila was safe. Blake lurched forward again. _He never learned how to fight_, she remembered. Joan landed a solid left hook into his jaw, then kicked him in the knees and pushed him back. He lost his footing and fell awkwardly on the floor.

"Blake, that's enough!"

All the fight seemed to seep out of the man, and his body was rocked by dry sobs again. "He can't be gone…" she heard him say. "He can't…"

Joan fell on her knees next to him, whether of physical exhaustion or to offer comfort, she couldn't tell. "It's over." He tried to sit up, and she tried to lend him a hand, despite the dizziness that threatened to overcome her. "It's all over" she repeated, hugging her last childhood friend in a desperate attempt to keep him together.

_Eh?_

The searing pain in her left side was not expected. _I know this pain._

Joan pulled away from Blake to get a good look at his face. He looked possessed, and completely broken at the same time. Then something pulled out of her flesh and she gasped. "You…"

"I'm sorry" he said, as if it changed the fact that he just stabbed her. "I have to join him. If I burn too, will he forgive me?"

Joan watched him stand up and go back to the space he emptied earlier. She tried to slow down her breathing and apply pressure on the wound with both hands. It wasn't too deep, Hemlick was inexperienced, but it was bleeding sluggishly, and some of the organs might have been damaged.

"What are you doing?" she asked, voice surprisingly steady.

"I'm going first" he grinned toothily at her, setting up a small white candle on the floor and lighting it up. The floorboards looked suspiciously wet and shiny at that spot. Suddenly, her brain placed the smell that bothered her earlier. _Gasoline._

_No. God, no. _Joan scrambled to her feet, adrenaline making it possible without passing out. Blake took out the syringe destined to Leila. _No, not again._ "Blake, please…" _I'm not watching a friend die again._

There were blue and red lights flashing behind the windows, but neither paid attention to them. "I'm sorry, John. It really is the only way." He placed the needle at his vein (_did he train, he did, didn't he, oh gods_) and smiled again.

"No" she whispered in horror. The entrance door flew open and someone ran inside.

Blake must have practiced a lot, because at the same time the newcomers approached, he gave himself the shot and in a swift move knocked down the candle. "NO!" Joan screamed as the flames went up in a circle around her insane friend. "BLAKE! NO!" She lunged towards the fire, to get him out, to stop him. "JOHN!" someone yelled and strong hands caught her by the waist, pulled her back despite her vigorous struggling. She could see Blake collapse in absolute silence behind the fiery curtain. She fought against the person restraining her, but her efforts were getting weaker, and he manhandled her outside, just as the firefighters rushed inside.

_Dead._ The realization hit her like a ton of bricks. _Blake's dead. They're all dead._

**# #**

Locating Leila Dime had not been an easy task. Mainly, because it was not her real name. The breakthrough came when Sherlock finally deigned to read Falcone's file, that had been found misplaced in NSY archives, and noticed the name of his alleged girlfriend. From there, they dug up the file on Lillian Dimitroff, granddaughter of a Russian immigrant, who had gone missing in 1985 and reappeared in 1998. Photographic evidence confirmed her to be Leila Dime. Lingering over that particular, undoubtedly tragic, story was deemed a waste of time, and Mycroft directed squadrons of police, paramedics and firefighters (just in case) to Miss Dimitroff last known address. They followed by car.

They arrived to see a distressed fifty-something woman crying on the lawn, clutching a grey blanket around thin frame. The only intelligible words were "revenge" and "sorry", but they were enough to confirm that they were at the right place. The police officers were ready to launch the assault, when Leila finally said something useful: "He's going to burn it all."

The only thought in Sherlock's head at that moment was _John is still inside._ Pushing through the cordon and ignoring completely Mycroft's calls, he dashed to the door, throwing it open with no regard to discretion. "NO!" Joan screamed, and with a whooshing sound the air grew uncomfortably warm. He stumbled into the living room to see a wall of flames. "BLAKE! NO!" And Joan, unmistakable despite the different hair colour, about to rush head first into the pyre.

"JOHN!" He was at her side in two steps, catching her just before she got singed. The blogger struggled violently, but Sherlock held his ground and pulled her back, away from the fire, away from the madman inside. As he managed to get her outside, Joan suddenly stopped all resistance and let herself be guided to a nearby bench.

As she sat there, very still, Sherlock felt completely lost. "John?" he crouched in front of her, trying to catch her gaze. He was surprised to see that her left eye became brown. _Contact lenses, _his mind quickly supplied, _one fell out._ There was blood on her face. _Got hit in the head._

Before he could process the anger surging up in his gut, Mycroft sauntered over to them. "The fire is under control." As Joan did not react at all, Sherlock stood up cautiously and glared silently at his brother. "What do you want to do about the situation, Sherlock?"

They had discussed the options, of course. Mycroft was willing to cover up Watson's involvement in the murders against a pretty hefty favour ("she is keeping you in line, I got used to that"), or they could send her to trial, or… "I'll confess" Joan said softly.

Both brothers stared down at her in shock. She looked up with a tired shadow of a smile. "I'll confess to everything. No point in hiding anyway."

"John…" the detective started. He wanted to put a hand on her shoulder but froze mid-gesture. It was covered in blood.

"If I survive, that is" she added serenely.

Sherlock fell on his knees and tore the vest off the doctor's shoulders. Her entire left side was soaked in blood, and no one had noticed due to black clothing and other priorities (like the fire raging in the house). Sherlock's brain stopped functioning properly at this point, and he could only stare pleadingly at his friend. "Medics!" Mycroft yelled to someone.

"Hypovolemic shock is just about here" Joan informed them, eyes starting to drop. Seeing her falter, Sherlock hoisted himself on the bench and hugged her with one arm, trying to keep her immobile. "I prepared the compound" she continued in an almost whisper. "I taught the boys how to inject and how to hold a scalpel. I might as well have killed them all myself."

"Don't talk" Sherlock begged as the paramedics rushed towards them.

"I'm so sorry, Sherlock… Really, really… sorry…"

**# #**

Joan had been unconscious for two days. Aside from the two hours in surgery, Sherlock had not left her side. He had time to process what happened and ponder their options. _Fact:__ John is an accomplice to four murders and one murder attempt. __Fact:__ John had been coerced into the whole plot by childhood friends. __Fact:__ Both men involved in the murders are dead. __Fact:__ Both men were mentally instable. __Fact:__ John regrets it._

_Option A:__ Send John to trial. __Outcome A1:__ Guilty as accomplice and sentence of up to 10 years. Likelihood 13%. __Outcome A2:__ Acquitted due to mitigating circumstances. Likelihood 56%. __Outcome A3:__ Case dismissed due to insufficient evidence. Likelihood 31%._

_Collateral damage:__ John's reputation._

_Option B:__ Eliminate all evidence of John's involvement. __Outcome B1:__ No one notices, and John can continue living at Baker Street as usual. Likelihood… (factoring in Mycroft's resources) … 94%. __Outcome B2:__ The ruse is revealed, and John goes to trial with a reduced chance for acquittal. Likelihood 6%._

He was busy considering possible impacts of the second option when Joan's heart rate spiked. Sherlock jumped up from the metallic chair and rushed at her side. "John?"

She eyed him tiredly. "I'm not dead?"

"Despite your best efforts" he huffed, instantly regretting it.

"Ah" was her only response before closing her eyes. She did not fall asleep though.

"Does it hurt?" Sherlock asked tentatively, because it certainly looked like it. "Do you need painkillers?"

"I'm fine" Joan gritted through her teeth.

"You don't look fine."

"You don't say."

They lapsed into a tense silence, where Joan was trying not to cry, and Sherlock was trying to figure out a course of action. Finally, he settled on a simple suggestion: "We can keep your role in the case under wraps."

Blue eyes flew open. "No."

The vehemence of her answer was unexpected. "Why not?"

"I knew what I was doing. I don't need big brother to shield me from responsibility."

"It is not necessary to involve Mycroft…"

"That's not it, Sherlock." She tried to pat him on the head but overestimated her current strength. Wincing, she settled on patting his hand. "I do not want special treatment."

"You want everyone to know?" he frowned. The idea of announcing Joan's faults to the world had not occurred.

"I want to pay the price for my crimes. In full. No shortcuts." Her voice was firm and confident, in stark contrast to her haggard appearance.

"But…"

"No one would trust me after that, yes." Her gaze softened at the sight of his confusion. "You should just leave me be, you know. Who would hire a detective who lived with a serial killer?"

"Lives."

"What?"

"Who lives with a serial killer" Sherlock insisted.

"I'm going to prison" Joan reminded him gently.

"That remains to be seen. Nevertheless, unless it is against your wishes, I see no problem with you staying at Baker Street." He was damned if he let her go that easily.

"I drugged you."

"With no lasting effects, I must add."

"I ran away and tried to kill someone."

"It might happen to me as well."

"I'm a wreck."

"So am I."

They glared heatedly at each other, before Joan let out a strained giggle. Soon enough they were both trying to catch their breath from laughing too hard. "Shit…" the blogger panted. "Now I am dizzy."

"You're not getting rid of me with some murders, John" Sherlock stated. "Quite the contrary."

**# #**

Despite Joan's protests, Holmes magic made the whole thing into a closed trial, no media allowed. She let her lawyer explain the whole thing, even if she felt that putting the accent on their young age and trauma had been unnecessary. She answered as truthfully as she could, about Hannah, about their pact, about their plotting and about the actual murders.

When asked about Falcone's death, she explained that they spent two years approaching him, trying to get as much information as possible, and Joan had been on the front lines, in direct contact with their target, being the less conspicuous of the three. At that time, she still believed that they could hand the data over to the police and avoid the bloodshed. Henry would have to deal with it.

But then Alistair started getting suspicious, and she got wheeled off to a warehouse in a white van. It was pure dumb luck that Blake had witnessed the abduction, and that the boys managed to track it down before Falcone actually killed her.

The first murder had been such a sloppy affair… But the terror in Alistair's eyes when they injected him had set something off in Henry. "The first one" he had said, cutting the Roman numeral I into the cooling skin. He found his drug.

It only got worse from there.

Joan recounted everything in a monotone voice, gaze fixed on the far wall of the court room, never mentioning the fear, the guilt, the anger and all these other undecipherable emotions she had felt at the time. She didn't see the horrified looks on the jury's faces, nor the uneasy grimace of the magistrate.

At some point, the judge asked her: "Do you regret it?"

_Do I? _Joan wondered. _I wanted them dead. I really did. I wonder why… It was supposed to help Henry. It was supposed to bring back Hannah. But it was never going to work. We damned ourselves for nothing. We set ourselves ablaze. _"Yes" she answered, looking the older man in the eyes.

After a two-hours long deliberation, Joan Watson had been acquitted.

**# #**

"We did not have a private conversation for a long time now" Mycroft said, serving the tea. His minions had intercepted the doctor just when she was released from custody, and she could only imagine how badly Sherlock was reacting right now.

Joan wriggled on the sofa (that probably cost about the same as a kidney on the black market) and tried to smile politely. It came out as a grimace. "Indeed."

"Don't fret. I am quite satisfied with the outcome of your trial."

That came as a surprise. "Really? Why?"

Mycroft pushed the ornate teacup towards her and leaned back in his plush chair. "Despite my usual disregard towards all things sentiment related, and contrary to my brother, I understand the driving force and the impacts of it." The confusion on her face must have been quite apparent, since he sighed heavily and attempted to dumb down his argument. "I can understand why you participated in this 'pact'. Young children are quite impressionable, and idealistic. And you, in particular, are very loyal to your friends. You could not drop out of the whole debacle because you cared about these two men."

The thought of Henry (desperate, bitter, sick, mad, cruel) and Blake (shy, enamoured, rejected, broken, burning) made her shiver involuntarily. _If they became like that, what about me? What am I now?_ She looked aside, if only to avoid the calculating eyes. "So?"

"It does not change the fact that your presence helped Sherlock" he stated calmly. "His own past is far from perfect. You can probably imagine what nine years of heavy drug use could do to a man." Joan looked up sharply at that. She knew about the drugs, of course, but not for how long it had been going on. "While most people see this as his defining trait, you only took it as one part of a whole. And he needs someone like you by his side."

"A murderer?" she asked incredulously.

"A friend."

**# #**

Even with a closed trial and an acquittal, her medical license had been revoked. Joan had stared at the letter for the longest time, then threw it in the bin. The next day, she landed a part-time job as a cashier in a nearby Tesco. At least now, they could get an employee discount on milk.

**# #**

The NSY had also caught wind of her involvement in a series of murders and the subsequent trial. Lestrade showed up about two days after she got back to Baker Street and attempted to discreetly quiz them about it. Sherlock exploded.

"For God's sake, Graham, she was acquitted! Let it be!"

"I know, but there'll be all sorts of rumours" he tried to justify his actions. "Give me something so I could try to tone it down."

Joan, who had been watching them silently while leaning on the kitchen door, finally spoke up. "Don't. I never intended to hide it, but I won't go around announcing my story to everyone."

Both men stared at her in various degrees of disbelief. "Are you… sure?" Greg asked, a little hurt she included him in 'everyone'.

"Can't be worse than what actually happened."

Shortly after, he left, without any answers.

**# #**

Sherlock noticed that Joan had barely slept a couple of hours since she was released from custody. And it had been four days already. Usually, he would not pay attention to such trivia, but bloody Mycroft had warned him about the potential fallbacks of the trauma, and unfortunately, the fat git made sense. He tried the proven technics, playing soothing pieces on the violin, watching old movies with an endless supply of tea, but it did not work.

Joan was getting paler than a ghost, twitchy, grumpy and completely apathetic.

"John? Shouldn't you sleep?" he ended up asking on the fifth night, while she gulped down another mug of coffee.

Her gaze was dull and tired, but her voice was sharp. "I don't think so."

"You will have to, eventually."

"Since when do you worry about someone else's sleep patterns?" she narrowed her eyes.

"Since you're trying to kill yourself by sleep deprivation."

"And what if I am?"

This response cut into him like a very sharp knife. Rationally, Sherlock understood that she was not thinking properly anymore, no one could in that state. However, the idea of her intentionally bringing herself to the brink of death, especially so soon after getting into the ICU from a stab wound, was extremely unsettling. "Why?" he asked softly.

Joan seemed to instantly regret her words though, as she shuffled from feet to feet and looked away. "I don't want to dream" she finally said, barely a whisper. "I still see them burning." He did not know how to react to this.

Sherlock ended up slipping a pill in her tea, and Joan slept for twelve hours straight.

**# #**

It had been several months since the trial. Joan continued working a light schedule at the cash desk and following Sherlock around on cases. The rumours in the Yard died down, for lack of new information, even if she still got odd looks now and then.

Mycroft showed up occasionally, and she was certain that one day he will call upon his favour from her. He was holding it for now, possibly out of curtesy to Sherlock.

Sherlock… well, Sherlock became slightly more considerate, with a tenacious motivation to make her sleep at least six hours a night. Joan did not like to sleep. Without sleeping pills, the rest often turned into a nightmare, and she did not want to get addicted to these things.

She would often just lay down and stare at the ceiling, trying to remember her childhood, and things they did while Hannah was alive. Good times, good laughs.

Sometimes, Joan would smile coldly in the dark at one particular memory.

_Henry was pounding his fists against the tree. Blake tried to stop him when the bark started to tear into the skin, and they wrestled for several minutes. "Let's find them ourselves" Joan suddenly said. The boys stared at her, frozen in the most ridiculous positions. "Let's find them. And make them pay."_

"_Like… bring them to the police?" Henry asked, straightening up._

_Eleven-year-old Joan clenched her jaw in grim resolution. "Maybe. Or just kill them."_

_Something ignited in Henry's eyes, mirroring her own quite immature but very real rage, and Blake stepped back at the sight. "Yes. Let's kill them."_

**# #**

**A/N2:** Well, that got out of hand. I feel like it's the closest I'll ever get to evil!John. I don't even know why my brain tries so hard to make it happen.


End file.
